Director Tim Burton related that, as a teenager growing up in Burbank California, he felt estranged, isolated and misunderstood. A drawing by him of a solemn man bearing long sharp blades spoke to his inability to form and retain friends. The drawing served as inspiration for his film Edward Scissorhands, where he sought to explore a young man dealing with feelings of isolation and self-discovery. After reading First Born, a 1983 novelette by Caroline Thompson, he was sufficiently impressed to hire her to write the screenplay for the film. Burton and her sought inspiration from the classic monster movies of the past including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, and Frankenstein, as well traditional fairy tales. The project was very personal to Burton, and Thompson relates she wrote the screenplay as a love poem to the director. 20th Century Fox acquired the film rights, and given Burton’s stunning commercial success with Batman in 1989, gave him complete creative control. He assembled a fine cast, including Johnny Depp for the titular role. Joining him would be Winona Ryder as Kim Boggs, Dianne Wiest as Peg Boggs, Anthony Michael Hall as Jim, Kathy Baker as Joyce, Robert Oliveri as Kevin Boggs, Alan Arkin as Bill Boggs, O-Lan Jones as Esmeralda, and Vincent Price in his final screen role as Edward’s creator.

For our story, Burton eaves a modern fairytale and takes us on a magical journey, which follows the life of Edward, an artificially created human. His creator, the inventor, constructs him, schools him as a son, yet tragically dies before completing Edward’s last phase of construction, which was to replace his scissor hands with real human hands. It comes to pass that Peg Boggs, an Avon door-to-door saleswoman, discovers Edward in his foreboding gothic mansion. She befriends him, and takes him home to meet her family. He bonds with the family, the community, and especially daughter Kim, which arouses the jealousy of her boyfriend Jim. Eventually jealousy spawns conflicts, which force Edward to flee from the community. Unwilling to let things go, Jim attacks Edward in his mansion and is killed. Kim realizes that love is not enough, kisses him goodbye, confessing her love as she departs. She safeguards his future by providing an alibi to the police and neighbors. Edward thereafter lives out his days in isolation as Kim, now a grandmother tells his story to her granddaughter. The film was an impressive commercial success, earning $86 million, or four times its production cost. Critical reception was good, but the film received only one Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup. Despite this, both Tim Burton and Danny Elfman consider the film their most personal and favorite collaboration.

Although Burton had collaborated with Danny Elfman on three prior films, including the stunningly successful Batman his initial choice for composer was English singer-songwriter and musician Robert Smith of The Cure. Smith, who was busy recording his new album “Disintegration,” declined the offer, leading Burton to offer the assignment to Elfman. Upon reviewing the film Elfman understood that this was a magical fairytale with a unique and very special soul, an innocent to which his music would need to speak. To create the fairy tale wonder, magic and mystery that was Edward, he infused his gossamer like music with a delicacy and etherealness born by boys and women’s choruses, celeste, piano, metallic percussion, and harp. Once Edward joins the suburban community, Elfman speaks to his quirkiness and scissor trimming talents with exotic Spanish auras and rhythms, replete with castanets.

The score is underpinned by two primary themes and a motif. The Main Theme serves as Edward’s identity, and speaks of his innocence, feelings of isolation, and quest for self-discovery. It emotes as a gossamer-like valser delicato carried by celeste, chorus and pizzicato strings. In a masterstroke of conception, Elfman with this theme captured the emotional core of Edward. The second theme is dichotomous in that it offers a Love Theme that speaks of Kim’s feeling for Edward, yet for me it is also the Story-telling Theme, which supports the tale of Edward, and well as his personal quest for self-actualization, of finding his place in the world. This theme, so full of yearning, is in my judgment perhaps the finest in his canon. What is instructive is how Elfman subtly informs us that Kim and Edward’s love will never be consummated. For all statements except that of the “Grand Finale”, the melody never finds resolution, instead ending on one aching note, so full of longing. When the theme is finally unleashed, empowered by full chorus, its articulation achieves the sublime, offering a breath taking statement which overcome us, eliciting a quiver and a tear. The Suburbia Motif is effusive quirkiness at its finest. Carried by saxophone and propelled by highly rhythmic prancing energy this motif speaks to the faux veneer of pleasant normality of suburban housewives that belies the dysfunction and unfulfillment within.

“Introduction” is a score highlight where Elfman brilliantly sets the tone of the film, and in a masterstroke of conception and execution, captures its emotional core. Elfman introduces his Main Theme, which is rendered fully and supports the flow of the opening credits. The music is carried by celeste with gossamer like delicacy against the flow of gothic castle imagery, and a parade of children’s toys and playthings. We close with snow-flurried images of the Inventor, and what Edward covets most – human hands. The ethereal wordless chorus creates a sense of wonderment, mystery and otherworldliness, a realm unknown, hidden and separate from humanity. For me this cue offers one of the finest film openings in Elfman’s canon and cinematic history. “Storytime” offers a score highlight, which graces us with the magic and wonder of the Story-telling Theme. The film opens with Kim gazing out a window through falling snow, at a distant hilltop mansion. Her granddaughter begs her to tell her a bedtime story, and Kim relents and begins to tell the tale. She relates that long ago an old man called the Inventor created a son, but died before he could complete his assemble, leaving him with scissors for hands instead of real human hands. When asked what was his name, Kim replied, Edward. As she tells the tale the Story-telling Theme unfolds atop twinkling celeste, joined warmly with strings tenero and woodwinds delicato. We are carried gently and effortlessly like a leaf atop a flowing stream. A transfer of the melody to ethereal wordless chorus empowers the theme’s articulation and carries us outwards, through the snow swept skies aloft to the distant mansion. We partake in a magical journey filled with mystery and wonder, which ends abruptly without resolution as we gaze through one of the mansion’s open windows.

“Castle on the Hill” offers the score’s longest and most complex cue where Elfman must speak to a broad spectrum of emotions. Peg, an Avon door-to-door saleswoman is having a bad day. She happens to glance at the gothic mansion in the distance and decides to make a calling. A harp rendered mysterioso carries her progress. Fragmentary phrases of the Main Theme, which never coalesce, sow unease as she drives through the broken gate and up the overgrown driveway. Orchestral auras kindred to the Main Theme, replete with tolling bells support her arrival. As Peg walks through the fence and enters a garden sanctuary at 1:37, the music softens atop celeste, violins and boys choir, evoking a sense of wonderment, as she observes countless beautifully sculpted bushes and manicured flower gardens. At 1:39, a nascent fragment of the Story-telling Theme alludes to Edward’s discovery. At 2:02 we transition to a mysterioso after a fleeting glance of Edward looking through a window, and Peg walking to the front door. As she knocks and then enters the castle at 2:23 the mysterioso darkens and becomes eerie as she enters the dimly lit and decrepit main hall with its grotesque cobweb draped statuary. The mysterioso is sustained at 4:01 with a violin ascent that joins with a fragment of the Main Theme to carry her up the long main stairway to the second floor. At 4:29 the music softens and becomes tender as she comes across a straw mattress bed in the hearth that is decorated with old magazine photos and mementos. She turns to observe a figure in the shadows at 5:15 and the music darkens, becoming more threatening as Edward emerges from the shadows bearing sharp scissors for hands. Peg is fearful, yet overcomes this to greet him. We end with auras of uncertainty as she soothes him, befriends him and resolves to take him home with her.

In “Beautiful New World” Peg is driving Edward back to her home supported by happy, bright, and carefree travel music with and incredible lightness of being. The music speaks to the sense of wonderment we see in Edward’s eyes. At 0:31 we segue into “Home Sweet Home” atop refulgent violins and kindred strings tenero with harp adornment, as Edward observes her family photos on the mantle. As he gazes on a photo of Kim, his eyes are captured by her beauty, which Elfman supports with a tender rendering of the Love Theme. “Esmeralda” was dialed out of the film. Elfman conceived a grim statement by pizzicato strings and accordion to inform us of her insufferable sanctimonious animus. “Ballet de Suburbia” offers Elfman quirkiness at its finest. It reveals the neighborhood housewives assembled on the street gossiping about the man Peg brought home. Elfman weaves a comic prancing piece carried by sax, piano, pizzicato strings, trilling woodwinds and muted trumpets, which speaks to the ridiculousness of the moment. At 0:32 we have an accelerando as the women run back to their homes to greet the arrival of their husbands, which are all coming home at the same time! “The Cookie Factory” features one of the score’s more quirky and creative cues. Edward has a flashback as Peg uses an automatic can opener. We see a bizarre mechanized conveyor belt with robotics mixing cookie dough in the mansion as the Inventor watches with glee. Elfman takes us on a quirky tuba propelled ostinato with woodwinds animato that mimics the mechanistic movement of the conveyor belt. The Main Theme enters on horns draped with choir as the cookie dough enters the oven. At 1:50 the music softens on oboe delicato, celeste and boys choir as the Inventor take a heart shaped cookie and places it over the chest of an inanimate robot. We close with a warm rendering of the Story-telling Theme, an allusion of the inventor’s planned creation.

“Etiquette Lesson” reveals Edward in bed having a flashback to the Inventor educating him on proper etiquette. We see images of the Inventor’s design schematics for Edward as he reads to him from first the etiquette book, and then a collection of poems. Elfman supports the scene with a tender and heartfelt rendering of the Main Theme, which speaks to the genuine father son affection felt by the Inventor. In “Edwardo the Barber” we are treated to one of the score’s most creative and fun cues. The neighborhood discovers that not only can Edward sculpt plants, but also dogs! They bring their dogs for his unique talents and one by one they are transformed. Elfman animates and propels the scene with a spirited horns and bubbling woodwinds animato. At 1:00 we shift to a faux Argentine Tango, replete with castanets as Joyce insists that Edward cut and style her hair. As he begins an accelerando is unleashed on frenetic strings and accordion, which race with an almost manic energy. As other women take their turn, the Tango returns, informing us of their ecstasy as his scissors unleash their transformative magic. We close at 2:55 on lush strings, tender and full of affection as Peg sits down for her styling, closing with a sweet flourish. “Ice Dance” offers one of the score’s supremely beautiful highlights. As the Peg prepares the tree for their annual Christmas party, Kim walks out to the front yard and discovers it is snowing! Edward is sculpting a massive ice angel and the shavings sweep upwards and descend as snowflakes. The moment is rapturous for Kim, and Elfman creates a perfect synergy of film and music with a magical rendering of the Love Theme, which abounds with wonder. The melodic flow is severed when Edward in dismounting the ladder accidentally cuts Kim’s hand, which results in a bullying push back by Jim.

“The Tide Turns” supports multiple scenes, which are not connected sequentially. We begin with Jim duping Edward into breaking into his father’s sound studio so he can steal the system and sell it for profit. We open with the house break-in where Edward unlocks the front door. Elfman provides suspense texturally and rhythmically with pizzicato strings, chattering xylophone and staccato horns. At 0:20 a harsh string ostinato begins churning with growling horns and fierce percussion as the alarm sounds. Jim and friends flee as the trapped Edward frantically tries to open the locked door. The police arrive at 1:22 and a plaintive, and increasingly stressed variant of the Main Theme plays as Edward walks out and is ordered by the police to drop his weapons or be shot. Fortunately he is saved by the neighbors who convince the police to hold their fire. Later in the film at 2:10 Kevin is walking home as a drunken Jim and his friends drive the van in search of Edward. A low register string sustain portends danger as the swerving van heads down the street. We build slowly on a dark crescendo as the van heads for Kevin. Edward leaps to push to safety, but in the aftermath accidentally cuts Kevin’s face, which is misinterpreted by Jim and the neighbors. Elfman supports the drama with a tortured diminuendo of pain, which reflects Edward’s distraught and the neighbor’s collective anger. At 4:07 horns brutale and fierce drums propel Jim who jumps on Edward and begins bashing him against the ground. As Edward slashes Jim’s arm the police arrive. Kim tells him to run home and a chorus, full of anguish carries him home to safety.

“Death!” support s a multi-scenic cue full of pathos and heartache, which offers for me the score’s most emotional cue. Edward returns home and Kim and he embrace, their unspoken love at last set free. Elfman supports the moment with a stirring, full romantic rendering of the Love Theme. At 1:17 Edward hesitates in his embrace and we flash back to a Christmas long ago where the Inventor presents Edward with a Christmas present, his new hands. The Story-telling Theme unfolds full of joy and wonderment to support the tender moment. Yet the music darkens and descends into heartache as we see life depart from the Inventor’s eyes, as he drops dead. The broken hands lay on the floor and as Edward caresses his father, he slices his face. We close again in the moment with Edward and Kim and see in his eyes the realization that he could never hold and embrace her safely. In “The Final Confrontation” the neighbors have descended into an angry mob, seek vengeance and storm the gates of the mansion, where Edward has fled. Grim low register horns and drums bellicoso drive their anger. A flurry of harp glissandi carries us to Kim, who is racing to Edward ahead of the mob. The Love Theme struggles to emerge, yet fails as a wounded chorus carries her progress. An orchestral ascent carries he up the grand staircase to him. At 0:57 the music softens as she finds him sitting on his bed and the Love Theme unfolds, yet it never blossoms as its articulation is violently severed at 1:33 by a timpani roll as Jim opens fire with a pistol, and then begins to beat Edward savagely with an metal post. Orchestral mayhem supports the brutality until at 2:03 Edward fatally stabs Jim. As he falls to his death tympani resound and portend his doom, culminating with tolling bells and chorus, which mark his death.

“Farewell…” offers the aftermath of Jim’s death as Kim and Edward realize they must be forever apart. As she kisses him and declares her love, he bids her a sad farewell. A final reprise of the Love Theme carries the heartache of the moment, never resolving as she flees below to confront the mob. Plaintive and tortured flight music carries her progress. She picks up a long discarded scissorhand and convinces the mob that Edward is dead. We end with unbearable sadness – a grim diminuendo crowned with a bell toll. “The Grand Finale” offers the score’s crowning moment where it achieves its emotional apogee, a testament to Elfman’s mastery of his craft. We return to where it all began in the bedroom where Kim relates to her grandchild that she never saw Edward again. When asked why she does not visit him now, she states that she wants him to remember her as she was in her youth. When asked how she knows he is still alive, Kim answers, because it snows. As we see Edward ice sculpting in the attic, the wind captures the flakes and bathes the land with snow. To support the heartfelt moment, Elfman graces us with a breath taking, resplendent full rendering of the Love Theme with all its wonder and magic. The music carries us into the End Credits, where it transitions seamlessly into “The End”, which completes the roll of the credits. The credits roll is supported by a reprise of the Main Theme, a mysterioso bridge passage, that concludes with a last refrain of the Love Theme.

This review used the original 1990 soundtrack release, which I believe contains the score’s essential and finest cues. Elfman’s early career canon often featured creative writing, which embraced innovation, quirkiness, and the unconventional. This score, more than any other in his canon revealed his gift to weave both quirky and thematic writing into a cogent, well-conceived and integrated score. This film offered the road less traveled, and in my judgment, Burton’s vision was fully realized because of Elfman’s brilliant conception, which in a masterstroke captured the film’s emotional core. Elfman’s score brought the fairytale of Edward to life anchored by two extraordinary themes. He created the magic, the child-like wonderment and empathy required of the film’s narrative. Also masterful is how Elfman captured the oddities, auras and quirkiness of Burton’s suburban vision. This score is in my judgment the best effort in Elfman’s canon, a Bronze Age gem and one of the finest in the fairytale genre. I highly recommend its purchase as an essential score for your collection.

With These Hands (written by Abner Silver and Benny Davis, performed by Tom Jones) (2:43)

Running Time: 52 minutes 20 seconds

MCA Records MCAD-10133 (1990)

Music composed by Danny Elfman. Conducted by Shirley Walker. Orchestrations by Steve Bartek. Recorded and mixed by Shawn Murphy. Edited by Bob Badami. Album produced by Danny Elfman.

]]>https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/14/edward-scissorhands-danny-elfman/feed/0moviemusicukBest Scores of 2018, Part Ihttps://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/11/best-scores-of-2018-part-i/
https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/11/best-scores-of-2018-part-i/#commentsFri, 11 Jan 2019 18:00:01 +0000http://moviemusicuk.us/?p=8843This is the first installment in my annual series of articles looking at the best “under the radar” scores from around the world. Rather than grouping the scores on a geographical basis, this year I decided to simply present the scores in a random order, and so this first batch includes five scores from several disparate locations – a stunning romantic TV drama from China, a political drama score for a TV series from Egypt, a drama score from India by one of the world’s most successful composers, and two standout works from Spain – a historical TV drama series, and a stunning documentary work about mysteries of science, nature, and space.

AIQING DE BIANJIANG [FRONTIER OF LOVE] – Mark Chait

Frontier of Love is a Chinese-language television series starring actress Yin Tao and actor Timofey Katarev. It is a love story spanning over 50 years, which follows the affair between Wen Yiqu, a Chinese an undergraduate student of at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, and a Russian radio announcer named Vica. Beginning in the 1950s, Wen and Vica meet and fall in love, but when the political relationship between China and the Soviet Union worsens, the Soviets pull all their citizens out of the country. Determined to be together, Wen and Vica take jobs in two cities on the border between the countries, where they try to maintain their relationship by listening to their voices through broadcast radio. It’s an unusual story told across more than 50 episodes in 2018, but it is given life by its extraordinary score by South African-born Shanghai-based composer Mark Chait.

Although Chait has been working as a composer since the 1990s, his output has been limited mostly to short films, documentaries, and tiny indie features. Frontier of Love – if enough people actually hear it – could finally be his breakthrough score. It’s a score of quite exquisite beauty, anchored by several tremendously emotional cello passages that comment on the despair of lost love. Several cues stand out for their spectacular beauty, including the “Frontier of Love Main Theme,” the glorious “Wait for Me” in which the main theme is re-orchestrated for brass and rendered with contemporary electronic percussion, the yearning “Whispers of Love by His Death Bed,” the magnificent and emotionally devastating “The Miracle of Love”, and the sweeping and heartfelt pair of finale cues, “The Last Goodbye” and “An Epic Journey of Love,” which stand up against some of the most moving romantic cues written in recent years.

What’s clever about many of these themes is the way in which Chait blends Chinese and Russian music together; he uses traditional instruments from both cultures – pianos, cimbaloms and balalaikas from Russia, erhu, guzheng, and pipa from China – and writes melodic phrases that are stereotypically redolent of each country’s styles, but then has the instruments from one culture playing the melody of the other. It’s really quite superb, and perfectly encapsulates the series’s core idea where people of vastly different heritage can come together and fall in love.

Other cues of note include the lilting piano and string writing of “Wen Yiqiu’s Theme,” the quiet intimacy of “A Girl in Love,” and the intensity and passion of “Vica, the War Hero” which uses a more militaristic tone with prominent brass, tumultuous percussion, and choral outbursts to underscore his gallant appeal. I also really like the pretty woodwind and string combination in writing in the romantic “Affairs of the Heart,” and the bittersweet longing in the piano and cello writing in “Memories of the Past,” while the chorally enhanced and operatic “Desperate for the Father of My Child” reaches some tremendous heights of emotional anxiety, including some of the score’s most dissonant passages. There’s also an original song, “Moscow Nights,” which is performed by lead actors Tao and Karataev, and acts as the end credits for each episode.

As an introduction to the music of composer Mark Chait, Frontier of Love is a truly spectacular one, and sets the bar high in terms of any future soundtrack releases from him. Whether the success of this score will lead to assignments in North America remains to be seen – he seems to have carved out a niche for himself working in China – but irrespective of his geographical location, one cannot fail to be impressed with this glorious musical exploration of love and forbidden passion. The score is available as a digital download from Milan Records from all the usual online retailers, but unfortunately it appears that no physical CD exists at this time.

Every year, during the holy month of Ramadan, many Muslim-majority countries produce lavish TV mini-series, which are broadcast to enormous ratings and viewership numbers across the Arabic-speaking world. One of the most prestigious of these in 2018 is Awalem Khafea – Hidden Worlds – a Saudi-Arabian/Egyptian co-production starring one of the biggest Arabic actors in the world, Adel Emam. It’s a political thriller-family drama in which Emam plays a prominent writer and novelist who accidentally finds a number of highly confidential documents incriminating high government officials of numerous crimes, including corruption. Despite some initial misgivings the writer insists on publishing them, a decision which puts his own life, as well as the lives of his family, in danger.

The score is by Khaled Hammad, a mixed-heritage Egyptian/Ukrainian composer who has been writing for movies and TV series across the Arabic world for many years. This is my first experience of his music and, I have to say, it’s quite wonderful. The main theme, as heard in the opening cue “Awalem Khafea Intro” is a full-on piece of orchestral melodrama, underpinned with mystery and passion, featuring a rolling piano lines, rousing trumpet fanfares, swirling strings, a sampled choir, and even an accordion. There’s a nostalgic throwback quality to it – you can imagine it accompanying one of those lavish 1980s TV mini-series – that is wholly appealing to my taste, but I can certainly see where some would find it to be a little too elaborate and grandiose. If I had to compare Hammad’s style to anyone, it would be probably be Georges Delerue – he shares a similar sense of lyricism and elegant Euro-romance with the late great Frenchman.

The sixteen tracks that make up the bulk of the score itself are mostly variations on the music heard in this core piece, but there are nevertheless several outstanding highlights. “Episode 1T1” features a softly romantic version of the main theme for strings and solo piano; “Episode 2T1” sees the main theme arranged with more urgency, with increased brass, more insistent synths, and a martial pulse; and “Episode 3T1” has a wonderful sense of Gothic mystery, which carries over into “Episode 4T2” with its chimes and cooing vocals. “Episode 6T1” returns to the French inflections with florid orchestrations for piano, strings, harp and accordion which are quite sumptuous. The conclusive “Awalem Khafea Outro” gives the main theme a final orchestral work-out, with bold and bombastic arrangements full of spectacle and extravagant pageantry.

Interestingly, the music contains virtually nothing which could be considered stereotypical ‘Arabic’ music, which is either a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view. The only cues which step even remotely into this world are “Episode 6T8” and “Episode 13T1,” which incorporate what sounds like an oud and a solo violin into the instrumental palette. Perhaps the only criticism one can level at the score is that it is desperately monothematic – the entire score is, basically, variations on the one melody – but when the melody is as good as the one Hammad has written here, that’s not necessary a bad thing.

Unfortunately the score for Awalem Khafea is not available for commercial purchase at this time – composer Hammad put this promo together for awards consideration purchases – so, as always, this review is intended to encourage soundtrack labels and producers to invest in the composer’s work. In the meantime, Hammad’s work for other projects can be heard through his Soundcloud page at https://soundcloud.com/khaled_hammad; I especially recommend his score for the 2014 film Cairo Time.

Beyond the Clouds is a Hindi-language Indian film written and directed Iranian filmmaker by Majid Majidi, under the production banner Zee Studios. It stars debutant actor Ishaan Khatter as Amir, a street hustler and drug dealer in Mumbai whose life is thrown into chaos when his naïve sister Tara (Malavika Mohanan) is jailed for a crime that he committed; torn between his loyalty to his crime boss employer and his love for his sister, Amir must find a way to get her out of prison without arousing the suspicions of the police, or his boss’s violent comrades.

The score for Beyond the Clouds is by the reigning king of Indian film music, Oscar-winner A. R. Rahman. It’s second collaboration between Majidi and Rahman, after Muhammad: Messenger of God in 2015, and like that first score, I think it’s quite superb. However, somewhat shockingly, the reviews in India have singled out Rahman’s score for some quite scathing criticism: it was variously called ‘overly sentimental,’ ‘manipulative,’ ‘unmemorable,’ and ‘reminiscent of his earlier creations’. While I’m not familiar enough with Rahman’s history to speak to the latter issue, I cannot disagree more strongly with those first criticisms.

Stylistically the score has a great deal in common with his Oscar-winning work Slumdog Millionaire. At times it is wistful and dream-like, while at other times it is exhilarating and hyper-kinetic, capturing the frantic energy of the city of Mumbai and its chaotic underbelly. There are gorgeously romantic piano lines in cues like “Son of Mumbai” and “Second Thoughts,” dramatic and poignant strings in “Twist of Destiny,” more playful and warmly-hued woodwinds in “The Gift,” and haunting tragedy in “Hospital” and “The Family Leaves”. The use of a western vocal chorus in “Twist of Destiny” is especially powerful, while the prettiness of cues like “The Gift” or “Reunited” will charm anyone who enjoyed Rahman’s unexpectedly beautiful score for the American comedy Couples Retreat. These are counterbalanced by the breathless energy of pieces like “The Game of Life” and the conclusive “Holi” which feature sitars, tablas, pungi, and other traditional Indian instruments performed at an incomprehensibly fast tempo, and which are often underpinned by vivid contemporary synth pulses.

In addition to Rahman’s score there are three original songs – “Ala Re Ala,” “Ey Chhoye Motor Chala,” and the title track “Beyond the Clouds”. I especially enjoy the latter, a calming and peaceful track which features the breathy and exotic-sounding wordless vocals of singer Nikhita Gandhi. “Ala Re Ala” is more upbeat and celebratory, with an intoxicating collision of clattering instruments under the vocals, but “Ey Chhoye Motor Chala” is basically Hindi hip-hop and isn’t really to my taste at all.

As if it should not be plainly obvious by now, A. R. Rahman is one of the world’s truly great film composers, and Beyond the Clouds is yet another example of why Western film music audiences need to take his work in the Indian film industry seriously. This is a moving, romantic, beautifully conceived work that combines music of great delicacy and emotion with the relentless electricity of contemporary Indian life.

La Catedral del Mar is a Spanish-language TV series broadcast on the TV3 network, adapted from the novel by Ildefonso Falcones. It is set in 14th century Barcelona and follows the story of Arnau Estanyol, the son of a fugitive slave, who works as a stone mason building the cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar. Eventually Arnau manages to win his freedom, and slowly ingratiates himself into Spanish society, obtaining wealth and status; however, as he does so, he incurs the wrath of the noble class who disdain his common upbringing, while also attracting the attention of those carrying out the Spanish Inquisition. The series stars Aitor Luna as Arnau, and has an original score by the king of Spanish historical TV dramas, Federico Jusid.

Anyone who has heard and become enamored with any of Jusid’s sumptuous scores for other historical epic TV series – Hispania, Isabel, Carlos Rey Emperador, La Corona Partida – will find La Catedral del Mar to be very much their equal. There is a rich classicism running through entire score, with emotional and powerful string writing, elegant brass countermelodies, light bright woodwind writing, and accents from an array of textures including pianos, harp, and gentle metallic percussion. Cues like the opening “On the Way to Freedom,” the bittersweet “Remorse,” the striking “Hormigal Drama,” and the sweeping and passionate “Discovery” are just gorgeous, with latter having more than a hint of 1990s James Horner about it.

Once in a while Jusid brings out his vocalists – a sole female singing tenderly in Latin in the wistful “Mother,” more exotic Middle Eastern inflections in “Hasdai’s Death,” the full choir chanting in an almost action setting in “Final Court Case” – and when he does so the effect is stunning, elevating the already magnificent orchestral music into something approaching the divine. At other times Jusid injects a hint of medievalism into his music through the use of more traditional instruments of the period alongside the standard contemporary orchestra, giving cues such as “Everything is Possible” and the exotic-sounding “On the Road to Barna” a slightly different lilting timbre. Conversely, cues like “Delerium” and “Inquisitor” are a little more abstract and appropriately atonal, while things like “Cholera and Destruction” and the superbly rousing “Via Fora” are filled with rolling drums and moments of percussive intensity to drive home their point, resulting in some wonderful moments of action and power.

The conclusive trio of cues – “Relieved,” “Honorable,” and “Chacona – Celestial Final” – see Jusid bringing all the key elements of the score together in a passage of music that begins with some brutal dissonance and evil-sounding explosions of sound, moves through some glorious string led tonality and specific cello-driven beauty, and brief sequences of playful warmth and rhythmic drama, before climaxing with a choral passage of genuine depth, illustrating perfectly Arnau Estanyol’s relationship with God and the cathedral that became his legacy.

Unfortunately the score for La Catedral del Mar has not been released on a commercial record label – this promo was created by Jusid for awards consideration purposes – but a few cues are available to hear via Jusid’s website at https://federicojusid.com/project/cathedral-of-the-sea/. As always, this review is intended to be a plea to record producers to release the score for commercial consumption, because music this good should not go unheard.

Otros Mundos is a six-part Spanish documentary television series broadcast on the Movistar network. Written and narrated by acclaimed author Javier Serra, Otros Mundos takes a fascinating look at many of world’s greatest historical unexplained mysteries and supernatural phenomena, including Ancient Egypt’s ‘Secret of Fatima,’ disturbing testimonies from people who claim to have encountered extraterrestrials, unlocking the secrets of so-called crystal skulls, stories from King Alfonso VIII’s reign during the Spanish Reconquista period, and detailed investigations in to symbols hidden in famous works of art.

The score for Otros Mundos is by Spanish composer Carlos Martín Jara, who first broke though in 2017 with his score for the historical mini-series Reinas (although, for that score, he was simply billed as Carlos Martín), and it’s absolutely outstanding. Written for a full orchestra and choir, with special emphasis on solo pianos and solo cello, Martín’s score is a deeply emotional and multi-faceted score which approaches the documentary’s subject matter with a sense of awe and reverence, and no shortage of emotion. At times there is even a deeply religious quality to the music – think Miklós Rózsa or Georges Delerue at their most reverent – which is enormously appealing.

In a score full of standouts, several cues are worth mentioning. The imposing “Main Theme” is purposeful and dramatic; this is counterbalanced by the beautiful, innocent “A New Sighting,” which has just the right amount of wide-eyed wonderment in its woodwind lines and slow, moving crescendos. “Erase Una Vez Javier” and parts of “Munaiz Theme” have a gorgeous, romantic sweep that sounds like something John Williams might have written in the 1980s – and that’s absolutely intended to be a compliment. Perhaps the pinnacle of the score’s emotional content is “The Miracle We Need,” which comes across like a glorious prayer.

King Alfonso’s VIII’s reqonquista has militaristic underpinnings, but regularly rises to embrace moments of glorious orchestral and choral majesty, notably in “Message from the Virgin”. The entire ‘Fatima’s Miracle’ sequence is a wonderful piece of orchestral neoclassicism, which begins by being underpinned with more war-like percussion, features a searingly beautiful duet for cello and piano in “Her Last Will,” goes on to introduce a sentimental Spanish guitar to the same melody in “The Miracle,” and concludes with a mysterious, moody arrangement of the theme for clarinet and orchestra.

Once in a while Martin also engages in some creative, energetic action music replete with purposeful brass figures; parts of “A New Sighting,” the superbly dramatic pair “La Batalla de las Navas de Tolosa” and “The Boy and ther Bull” with their throbbing cello rhythms and spectacular string writing, and the brass triplet extravaganza in the aforementioned “Munaiz Theme” are especially impressive. The 7-minute “Little Green Men” is Martín’s exploration of mysterious space music, a combination of moody instrumental tones and rampant orchestral-and-choral bombast which is occasionally reminiscent of some of Danny Elfman’s efforts in the genre – listen for those howling trombones! “Space Travel” has all the energy and excitement and awe-inspiring intimacy one would expect from a track like that.

The 1987 film Hellraiser, based on the novella The Hellbound Heart by British horror author Clive Barker, was an unexpected critical and commercial success at the box office, and as such an immediate sequel was commissioned to cash in on the new popularity of Pinhead and his merry band of ‘cenobite’ demons, who live in a realm of hell where pleasure, pain, and suffering are one. The resulting film, titled Hellbound: Hellraiser II, takes place in the immediate aftermath of the first film, and finds protagonist Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) – having escaped from Pinhead (Doug Bradley) – recovering in a mental institution under the care of Dr Channard (Kenneth Cranham). However, it is revealed that Channard is secretly obsessed with cenobites, and has been searching for the ‘lament configuration’ puzzle box that summons them for years. Despite Kirsty’s desperate pleas, Channard recovers the bloody mattress that Kirsty’s stepmother Julia (Clare Higgins) died on in the last film, and uses it to resurrect her; so begins a gruesome, desperate game, as Channard and Julia explore the realms of hell together, while Kirsty tries to stop the cenobites once and for all. The film was written by Peter Atkins and is directed by journeyman Tony Randel, taking over duties from Barker.

There is a truly great horror film buried within Hellbound: Hellraiser II, which despite its low budget charms is unfortunately something of a mess. There are some fascinating ideas here, which explore the histories of the cenobites (Pinhead was once a British military captain named Elliot Spencer) and gives them depth and even a twisted sense of morality, while also delving into the concept that each individual’s hell is uniquely tailored to them. Some of the special effects makeup is deliciously grisly, and it’s wonderful to see Shakespearean thespians like Cranham hamming it up as an insane doctor looking for salvation in all the wrong places. However, the whole thing is hamstrung by its limited budget, a finale that feels rushed, an unimaginative depiction of hell as little more than a series of dusty corridors, and a truly woeful depiction of the leviathan – the Cenobite god – who appears as an enormous geometric shape floating in the air.

However disappointing some aspects of the film are, the one thing beyond reproach is the score, by Christopher Young. Despite having had a modicum of success writing music for films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street II, Young’s score for the first Hellraiser film was the one which arguably launched his career, but as good as that score was, the sequel is a bonafide masterpiece. Director Randel told Young that he wanted the score to be a ‘celebration of horror’ and instructed him to write music that was an ‘operatic’ response to the film’s on-screen carnage. Young’s resultant work is simply staggering in its scale and complexity; it makes use of the 110-piece Graunke Symphony Orchestra, including a significantly large brass section featuring a bank of eight French horns, a full choir, and a range of specialty instruments including a calliope for a scene set in a hellish circus, an array of electronic textures, and a ‘devil’s horn’ which acts as a singular representation of leviathan itself. Interwoven throughout the score are a number of themes, some of which are carried over from the original Hellraiser, but which are anchored by the brand new Hellbound theme that opens the score.

And what a theme it is; beginning with a cymbal clash and a throng of massed voices, Young introduces the theme almost immediately via the aforementioned horns, thick and throaty and utterly dominant. As this first cue, “Hellbound,” progresses over its first two minutes, it gradually increases in scope, adding in additional layers of contrapuntal brass, swirling strings, thunderous percussion hits, anvil clangs, and even more choral intensity, until it finally climaxes in a mass of devilish musical glory.

The second half of the first cue, “Second Sight Séance,” is calmer and more introspective, with soft strings, harp glissandi, and delicate flutes alluding to the innocent nature of the Tiffany character – a fellow inmate of Kirsty’s at the Channard Institute who is mute but has an innate skill for solving puzzles. This is the other side of Young’s writing I love almost as much as his bombast; this creepy-beautiful style would be present in much of his writing throughout the 1990s, through scores like Jennifer 8 and Copycat and Species. However, after the 4:00 mark, the music changes again, introducing a brand new 7-note theme for Pinhead, a mass of undulating strings and choir which becomes bolder and more overwhelming as it develops. When the melody switches from strings to brass – enormous fanfares for horns accompanied by metallic percussion – the effect is simply stunning. A final return to the main Hellbound theme ends the cue on a truly epic note – listen to those gargantuan rasping brasses at 6:53, and the way in which the choir falls away at the end, as if descending into hell itself. Christopher Young has written some truly tremendous music over the course of his career but – and I say this honestly – these seven-and-a-half minutes may represent the absolute musical pinnacle of his life. It’s that good.

After this monumental opening, one could almost be forgiven for expecting the rest of the score to pale in comparison, but to Young’s credit he maintains the intensity and the excellence throughout. The Hellbound theme and Tiffany’s theme both feature prominently, but there are many other scene-specific elements worth mentioning. Cues like “Looking Through A Woman” and the second half of the subsequent “Chemical Entertainment” combine moments of vicious orchestral chaos and dissonance with some frenetic action chase music that features an increased rhythmic core, much of which is generated from some unusual percussion items including what sounds like pots and pans, anvils and chimes, African tribal drums, and maybe even a didgeridoo.

Cleverly, Young does some interesting things to his main cluster of themes – listen for the way the Hellbound theme becomes distorted and twisted at the 2:27 mark of “Looking Through A Woman” when he plays it in a peculiar key, or when he allows the theme to take on an almost seductive quality when he re-orchestrates it for sonorous cellos in “Something To Think About” to match the tone of Tiffany’s theme. Later, in “Dead or Living,” Young changes the theme into something insidious and terrifying, with massed voices and expansive brass calls giving the music a nightmarish edge, while in “Sketch With Fire” the brasses performing the Hellbound theme are somewhat muted, but a new texture is added by way of harp glissandi.

The ‘Lament Configuration’ theme from the first Hellraiser score, a twisted waltz often heard on a deceptively sweet music box, makes a welcome return towards the end of “Looking Through A Woman,” buried under a mass of bitter and tormented piano chords and eerie metallic dissonance. In addition, “Skin Her Alive” offers a grander and more imposing version of the Resurrection Waltz from the first score to underscore Julia’s blood-soaked return from beyond the grave.

Once Kirsty ventures into hell, the final recurring theme in the score emerges: for the Leviathan. Despite the disappointing nature of the entity as it is seen in the film itself, Young clearly saw a much grander visage in his mind’s eye when he was writing its music; the “Leviathan” cue reverberates with the enormous sound of a devil’s horn (a primitive instrument usually made from the horn of a ram or a goat), the rhythm of which spells out the word G-O-D in Morse code. Rattling chains, distorted anguished voices which seem to be chanting some sort of devilish incantation, and tolling bells simply add to the aural onslaught. Some of the score’s few electronic textures underpin the first half of “Chemical Entertainment,” the scene were Julia betrays Channard to the Leviathan and has him transformed into Hell’s newest cenobite. The music is as disturbing as one would expect it to be considering the context.

Young’s long-standing love of musique concrète – the method of using the recorded sounds of nature, or otherwise ‘found’ sounds, in addition to more traditional instruments – is also clearly heard in several of the score’s more challenging sequences, which reverberate to long periods of chaotic pounding and brutal intensity. Cues such as “Stringing the Puppet” and “Hall of Mirrors” are especially vivid examples of this unique and demanding style; in the latter, Young offsets the musique concrète against some truly demented circus music, mutating it beyond it’s familiar sound, to add to the disorientating nature of the score. By the end of the cue the music is shifting backwards and forwards across the stereo sound mix, a frenzied mass of fairground calliopes, the liturgical voices, snippets of the Lament Configuration theme, and clattering, anarchic percussion.

The finale of the score begins with “Headless Wizard,” in which Young underpins the main Hellbound theme with some tremendous frantic string passages, adding a sense of breathless tension, energy, and movement to the already imposing music. Explosions of brass led ferocity and choral majesty, a magnificent reprise of the new Pinhead theme underpinned with rolling pianos, yearning strings, trumpets that seem to be crying out in anguish. The first few moments of the conclusive “What’s Your Pleasure?” provide one of the score’s few respites from the madness, a relieved and near-angelic choral offering; the Leviathan has been defeated, Captain Spencer has been released from purgatory. Pinhead has been vanquished, Julia has been consigned to hell for good, and normality appears to have been restored. But, of course, the cenobites are never truly gone as long as there are hedonistic explorers seeking the delights and torments hidden inside the lament configuration puzzle box – and Young illustrates this madness with a final reprise of the circus calliope music, underscoring the appearance of Pinhead’s disembodied face on a grotesque pillar of souls. You can’t keep a good demon down for long.

The soundtrack for Hellbound: Hellraiser II has been released multiple times in multiple sets in different parts of the world – by GNP Crescendo Records in the United States in 1988 alongside Young’s score for the 1982 film Highpoint, as an 11 minute suite on a release of Young’s music for the film Judas Kiss in 2000, as part of a 3-CD set released by Silva Screen in 2003, and by BSX Records in a 2-CD set with the score for Hellraiser in 2012. To acknowledge the 30th anniversary of the film Lakeshore Records has recently released a new vinyl edition, overseen by Young himself, which has been re-mixed and re-mastered from the original 24-track 2-inch reel-to-reel analog tapes. As was the case with their similar release of Hellraiser last year, the sound quality on the new version is reportedly spectacular, revealing the depth and quality of Young’s orchestrations in a whole new light; for those of you who don’t own an LP record player, the upcoming CD version is absolutely recommended, even if you already own the score in one of its previous iterations.

Looking back at his career with thirty years of hindsight, it’s easy to see how Christopher Young got pigeonholed into scoring horror and thriller films for almost two decades in the aftermath of this masterwork. It’s not that he can’t do other genres – he is, in fact, a superb composer across the board – but the magnitude and brilliance of Hellbound: Hellraiser II stood apart as something so truly special, that every single major horror and thriller director immediately came calling, each wanting Young to bring to their film the genius he brought to this one. His subsequent work in the genre includes some tremendous scores, including The Fly II, The Dark Half, Species, Bless the Child, and more recent works like Drag Me to Hell and Priest, but Hellbound: Hellraiser II remains the crowning glory of his explorations of horror. It’s one of the best five scores of 1988, and is in the conversation to be considered one of the greatest horror scores in the history of cinema.

Music composed by Christopher Young. Conducted by Alan Wilson. Performed by the Graunke Symphony Orchestra. Orchestrations by Christopher Young. Recorded and mixed by Eric Tomlinson. Album produced by Christopher Young and Ford A. Thaxton.

]]>https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/10/hellbound-hellraiser-ii-christopher-young/feed/0hellboundhellraiser2-gnpmoviemusicukBAFTA Nominations 2018https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/09/bafta-nominations-2018/
https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/09/bafta-nominations-2018/#respondThu, 10 Jan 2019 03:31:55 +0000http://moviemusicuk.us/?p=8856The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has announced the nominations for the 72nd British Academy Film Awards, honoring the best in film in 2018.

In the Best Original Music category, which is named in memory of the film director Anthony Asquith, the nominees are:

TERENCE BLANCHARD for Blackkklansman

NICHOLAS BRITELL for If Beale Street Could Talk

BRADLEY COOPER, STEFANI GERMANOTTA (LADY GAGA), and LUKAS NELSON for A Star is Born

ALEXANDRE DESPLAT for Isle of Dogs

MARC SHAIMAN for Mary Poppins Returns

This is the ninth BAFTA nomination for Desplat, who won for “The King’s Speech” in 2010, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” in 2014, and for “The Shape of Water” in 2018; and the second nomination for Shaiman, who was previously nominated for “Sleepless in Seattle” in 1993. It is the first nomination for both Blanchard and Britell. Cooper, Nelson, and Lady Gaga are nominated for the numerous original songs they wrote for the latest screen version of A Star is Born.

The winners of the 72nd BAFTA Awards will be announced on February 20, 2019.

The 1972 novel Watership Down by Richard Adams is a classic of British literature. Note that I said literature and not children’s literature, because although the story is about a group of anthropomorphized rabbits, the story is very much an adult one. Following the destruction of their warren, a group of rabbits led by the brave Hazel, the sensitive Fiver, and the strong Bigwig make their way across the English countryside in search of a new home, and must fight against all manner of dangers – both natural and man-made – as they do so. What’s so brilliant about Adams’s novel is the way in which it creates an entire culture for the rabbits, with a creation myth, gods and spirits, a unique language with specialized vocabulary, and even a hierarchical society – the latter of which comes into play when Hazel and his friends encounter rabbits from an authoritarian rival warren overseen by the tyrannical General Woundwort. When you combine this with themes that mirror classical epics about life and death, environmentalism, and politics, the result is one of the great English books of the last fifty years. The story was made into a much-loved animated film in 1978 – again, not for kids – and is now a three-part mini-series jointly produced by the BBC and Netflix, directed by Noam Murro, which features an astonishing voice cast including James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, John Boyega, Ben Kingsley, Tom Wilkinson, Gemma Arterton, Olivia Colman, Daniel Kaluuya, Taron Egerton, and many many others.

There are some flaws with this new version. For starters, some of the animation is at times quite terrible, coming across as something akin to an early-2000s video game cut scene, complete with herky-jerky movement, and fur which does not seem to react with the physical environment around it. Some of the backgrounds are quite lovely, but only the whole it seems to have been badly-rendered. The screenwriters also seem to have taken some rather peculiar liberties with the characters; they made wholesale changes to the personalities of Hazel and Bigwig which make their motivations poorly-defined, they significantly increased the role of Clover by shoehorning her into a romance with Hazel at the expense of some of Fiver’s more important scenes of fraternal love, and they changed the gender of Strawberry from male to female, thereby negating the entire reason why the rabbits leave the down in the first place (because they have no does). They have also significantly toned down the horror of Fiver’s visions of death, which for me was a mistake because it makes his haunted, skittish personality seem like an exaggeration.

The score for this new version of Watership Down is by composer Federico Jusid, who wrote a full score for director Murro’s 2014 film 300: Rise of an Empire before the film was taken over in post-production by Zack Snyder and the music was thrown out. Jusid – for those who don’t know – is one of the best young film composers in the world. Born in Argentina, he splits his time now between Los Angeles and Spain, and is especially known for his absolutely stellar work on a number of Spanish-language historical epic TV series including Hispania, Isabel, Carlos Rey Emperador, La Corona Partida, and Tiempos de Guerra. On Watership Down, Jusid had some mighty big shoes to fill; the score for the 1978 film was by the late great Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson, the latter of whom was Master of the Queen’s Music at the time (a post previously held by Edward Elgar). That score was a gorgeous, idyllic depiction of the English countryside, and the soundtrack also featured the unforgettable song “Bright Eyes” written by Mike Batt and performed by Art Garfunkel, which was the biggest-selling single in the UK in 1979. Fortunately, Jusid’s talent is such that the new score is quite superb in its own right.

As one would expect, Jusid soaked his score in the tradition of the most well-known English classical music, from Elgar to Vaughan-Williams to Gustav Holst, and beyond. For inspiration, Jusid walked around the actual Watership Down – a hill in Hampshire in southern England – absorbing the nature, the sounds, and the feel of the place, as a way to inform the music. The resultant score is quite traditional in that it is performed mainly by a standard symphony orchestra (actually three of them, recorded in Budapest and Bratislava and Sofia), but Jusid augments it with a decent-sized array of synths too, mostly in the action sequences, and also did some post-production processing of the live instruments to give them an unusual timbre in the darker and more sinister scenes. Jusid also explains that he used “traditional instruments in non-traditional ways … I would knock on the inside of my piano, or have a string performer play with a knife which produces a harshness that mirrors what the rabbits feel when they get close to the human environment.”

The score opens with “Another Day in Sandleford,” which is just about as perfect a depiction of the idyllic countryside as one could imagine. Sun-dappled strings, an elegant lilting virtuoso solo violin, and dreamy woodwinds all combine to create the sound of rural perfection. Of course, anyone who knows the story knows that this tranquil haze does not last for long, and soon the rabbits are fleeing for their lives, their warren having fallen victim to the unyielding tractors and bulldozers of men. “Fiver’s Vision” predicts the demise with a dark, slightly twisted version of the main Sandleford theme, while in “Everyone Run” Jusid introduces his ferocious action style with frantic Herrmannesque strings, staccato stabs on the piano, metallic percussion, and a series of terrified-sounding woodwind shrieks. The staggered, slurred phrases that crop up after the 1:10 mark are fascinating, as they seem to create a sense of desperate struggle which is quite palpable.

Much of the score afterwards moves between these styles: rich depictions of English rural life via the Sandleford Theme as the depleted warren searches for a new home, punctuated with moments of tension, action, and occasional frantic horror as the rabbits fight off innumerable dangers. What Jusid does with the Sandleford Theme is actually very impressive; in “That’s Our Home,” for example, a clearly broken version of the theme is played, accompanied by bitter string phrases and stark French horns. Conversely, its performance in “Frith in a Basket” is just delightful, joyous and optimistic, and sees the melody augmented by dancing flute lines, as well as some deep and sonorous cello and horn writing, the phrasing of which reminds me of The Lord of the Rings at times, especially after 1:50.

The action music is really very impressive indeed. The first major action set piece is “Birds,” for a scene where the rabbits are attacked by a murder of crows. Here, Jusid uses abstract orchestral textures to create a sense of panic and disorientation; there are unusual sliding woodwinds, choral chants, flutter-tongued brasses, and thumping timpanis. The writing actually reminds me of something Bernard Herrmann or Jerry Goldsmith might have done in these circumstances – there is something about the phrasing and the chord progressions and the instrumental combinations which recalls the work of these two greats. The Goldsmith similarities continue in “Saving Bigwig,” for the scene where a rabbit is caught in a farmer’s snare and almost chokes to death. Jusid’s helter-skelter string runs combine with off-kilter woodwind accents, staccato explosions of drama, and a terrific action setting of the Sandleford theme. For some reason the action music from Basic Instinct keeps popping into my head as a comparison, and believe me this is a good thing. The finale of the Bigwig rescue sequence is “Well Done, Hazel-Rah,” which introduces a new theme for both the rabbit Hazel and their new home on Watership Down, as he establishes himself as the warren leader. Hazel’s theme sounds like a long lost piece by Holst, arranged like one of his great British patriotic hymns, and in this cue it builds to a rousing finale with soaring strings, bold brass, and timpani rolls.

Yet another new musical identity emerges in “Leave One Alive For Questioning,” and this is all to do with General Woundwort, the draconian overlord of the sinister Efrafa warren that threatens the safety of Hazel and the Sandleford rabbits. The music surrounding General Woundwart and Efrafa is martial, militaristic, and war-like, with dark, ominous drums and horns, while the theme for Woundwort himself is bulbous and threatening. An unusual elongated trumpet chord augmented by electronic pulses emerges in “Back to Efrafa” as a sort of recurring secondary leitmotif for the place, and this crops up frequently, especially in some of the action material later in the score.

Speaking of action music, several more cues stand out as being especially excellent. “The Escape” bursts into life around the 1:40 mark with strangely-phrased slurred strings overlaying a pulse of pianos and brass; Jusid’s writing here reminds me occasionally of James Horner’s The Pelican Brief crossed with the Hoth sequence from the The Empire Strikes Back, and is fantastically complicated in terms of rhythm and its creative orchestrations. “Black Branches That Fire” is mournful, with elegiac strings and an elegant but dark liturgical choir which appears to be singing Lapine, author Adams’s rabbit-language. “Don’t Look Up” bubbles over with energy, combining synth pulses with slicing strings, metallic percussion, and prepared piano. Both “I’m Going To Take Great Pleasure In Killing You” and “Kehaar to the Rescue” are unexpectedly modern-sounding, and quite epic, with hints of the Sandleford theme offset by the Efrefa motif, and some terrific passages featuring church organ, electronic pulses, choir, and whooping brass.

At this point it’s also worth mentioning the handful of quite unique cues Jusid wrote to illustrate some of the more unusual aspects of rabbit society and mythology. “El-Ahrairah” is actually the very first cue heard in the series, and is all about the legend of the mythical rabbit prince from whom all rabbits are descended; his music has an oddly distorted, old fashioned sound featuring a prepared piano. “The Black Rabbit of Inlé” is the rabbit version of the grim reaper – a spectral figure who carries dying rabbits away to be with Lord Frith, their deity – and that concept features high searching strings and woodwinds, which sound magical, almost ephemeral. “Clover in the Mist” is a moody, mysterious piece featuring the Sandleford theme on soft enticing horns, and a beautiful solo violin, while the subsequent “Super 8 Memories” (the General Woundwort flashback scene/origin story) and parts of “My Leader, My Brother, My Friend” arrange the Sandleford theme like the theme for El-Ahrairah, as if it is being heard on an old film reel, nostalgic and wistful. This is very creative stuff indeed.

A period of calm and idyllic happiness follows the initial defeat of Woundwort and the Efrafa warren, and the eventual establishment of a new Sandleford warren on Watership Down. “My Name Is Hazel” is one of the best cues on the album, featuring a determined, forthright, proud performance of the Sandleford theme, which then transitions superbly to Hazel’s theme, and features tolling bells, fluttering flutes, gorgeous string cascades, and builds to glorious finale. “Good Times in Watership Down” sees another version of the Sandleford theme, playful and charming, and the first half of “By Frith I Will Defend It” is strong and emotional – but the cue’s second half strings is interrupted by the return of the Efrefa ideas, aggressive and insidious, as the final battle for the fate of Watership Down begins.

The 18-minute finale, from “War” through to “Fiver is Alive,” is simply sensational, combining the Sandleford theme, the Efrafa motif, and Hazel’s theme amid some truly outstanding action writing. “War” features the most vicious exploration of the Efrafa ideas, a mass of electronic shrieks, heavy percussion, throbbing strings, and bold horn calls. “Goodbye, Captain Holly” opens with an anguished version of the Sandleford theme, underscoring the tragic-heroic death Holly, one of Hazel’s most trusted lieutenants. The iridescent overlapping string writing after the 4:00 mark reminds me of the finale of Jerry Goldsmith’s Powder, with all the emotional content that implies.

“Your Plan Is Dangerous Hazel” sees Hazel’s theme arranged as an exciting action motif, surrounded by almost Zimmer-esque percussion ideas, and a complementary rendition of the Efrafa motif at its most ballsy and dynamic; listen especially for the John Williams-style xylophones in the action percussion section, illustrating the rabbit relay race across the fields that Hazel’s plan entails. The subsequent “I Fear Nothing” plays almost like a slow motion reflection of Jusid’s action style, and seems to contain a palpable sense of destiny. The chanting choir and church organ add a layer of importance, the solo female vocalist gives it a further sense of scale, and the overall rich classical sound builds to a truly massive finale that fans of Jusid’s Spanish mini series scores will especially enjoy. The final cue of this sequence, “Fiver Is Alive,” is filled with relief, and a notable performance of the Sandleford theme covered in harp glissandi and twittering woodwinds.

The epilogue cue is “Join My Owsla” – ‘owsla’ being the rabbit-language word for the concept of rabbit police, which Hazel and Bigwig did for the Sandleford warren – and sees an aged Hazel-Rah finally lying down to sleep and becoming one with The Black Rabbit of Inlé, joining that great owsla in the sky. The music adopts a style similar to the one heard in the earlier Black Rabbit cue, but with a soft, welcoming sound. The whole thing ends with a gorgeous, religioso, hymnal blending of Hazel’s theme and the Black Rabbit motif which is powerfully emotional.

Also included on the album is the song “10,000 Enemies,” written and performed by Emeli Sandé for a scene in which the does of Efrafa sing in defiance of Woundwort’s law, but honestly I would stop the album after the final cue because really it’s not a very good song, and its placement on the soundtrack ruins the emotional mood of the final cue. It’s also worth noting that the other original song associated with this version of Watership Down, “Fire on Fire” by Sam Smith which plays over the end credits of each episode, is not included on the commercial soundtrack.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned whether Federico Jusid’s score for Watership Down could match the quality of Angela Morley’s score for the original; that work is so iconic, and so well-loved. But here’s the thing – and this may be an unpopular opinion – I actually think that Jusid’s score is better. It successfully captures the beauty and pastoral charm of the original, but in my opinion the action music is superior, the variety of the orchestrations is superior, the thematic depth is superior, and the way in which the score weaves its themes together across a longer period is excellent. The emotional content is high, especially from Hazel’s Theme. Really, the only way this score pales in comparison is the song, but that has nothing to do with Jusid, and what can be superior to “Bright Eyes” anyway? All this does is confirm to me what an outstanding talent Federico Jusid is; this is one of the scores of the year.

Music composed by Federico Jusid. Conducted by Federico Jusid and Peter Pejtsik. Orchestrations by Fernando Furones,Gustavo Gini and Tomas Piere. Recorded and mixed by Martin Roller, Vladislav Boyadiev and Jose Visnader. Edited by Arabella Winter. Album produced by Federico Jusid and Maria Ulled.

Avalon offered Barry Levinson’s third installment of his semi-autobiographical tetralogy of ”Baltimore Films” – Diner (1982), Tin Men (1987), Avalon (1990) and Liberty Heights (1999) – which explored immigrant life in his hometown Baltimore from the 1940s through the 1960s. He served as producer, director and screenwriter for the project and his production company Baltimore Pictures financed the film. He brought in a first class cast, which included Leo Fuchs as Hymie Krichinsky, Lou Jacobi as Gabriel Krichinsky, Armin Mueller-Stahl as Sam Krichinsky, Joan Plowright as Eva Krichinsky, Israel Rubinek as Nathan Krichinsky, Eve Gordon as Dottie Kirk, Elizabeth Perkins as Ann Kaye, Aiden Quinn as Jules Kaye and Elijah Wood as Michael Kaye. The film offers a commentary on the challenges of immigrant Russian-Jews trying to assimilate in America. Sam, the patriarch of the Krichinsky family, arrives in 1914 to forge a new life, eventually settling in Baltimore where he works as a wallpaper man. Matriarch Eva is firmly grounded in the old ways and ensures the family stays true to its roots. Conflicts between old country familial culture and modern American culture are inevitable and elicit generational clashes as Sam and Eva struggle to balance the old with the new. Despite hardships, which include an armed robbery, a devastating home fire, and children abandoning their surname for an American one, the family holds together, weathering the storm, united in love. The film was a commercial success and secured four Academy Award nominations including Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Film Score.

Levinson had greatly enjoyed his collaboration with Randy Newman on The Natural in 1984 and felt he was a perfect fit for the film. He relates: “Randy came up very quickly, I obviously worked with him on The Natural, but I thought this would be perfect for him, because the piano was an important element in the piece. You know, we see it being brought down the street in a rainstorm and into the house, and the grandfather can play the piano. So I thought ‘piano.’ When I was writing, I was thinking of Randy.” Newman understood that this was when all was said and done, the story of a family struggling to adapt to a new country, a new culture and new technology, which challenged the comfort and familiarity of the old ways. As such, he astutely chose a small ensemble for his soundscape. There is a “Once Upon A Time” sensibility, and a strong undercurrent of aching nostalgia that permeates the score, yet this is coupled with a comfortable and enduring familial warmth. Newman would provide waltzes, which bring old world charm as well as well as blessing us with a multiplicity of exquisite solo performances by flute, piano, trumpet and violin. The score is supported by three primary themes including; the Main Theme is multi-phrasic in construct. It offers a slow, minor modal valzer dolce with its tender A Phrase carried by solo piano gentile with woodwind adornment. Its B Phrase is more elegant and lyrical, carried lush strings. There is whimsical and nostalgic quality to this theme, yet one, which imbues a warm, and rose-tinted perspective.

I believe Newman perfectly captured the essence of Levinson’s vision with this beautiful piece. The Brothers Theme is kindred to the Main Theme in that it also emotes with the sensibilities of an waltz, in this case, a valzer gentile which Newman infuses ethnic Jewish auras. We are graced by a heartfelt solo violin, which is accompanied by kindred strings with woodwind adornment. The Family Theme is in many ways the most moving, as it is intrinsically bound up in the very fabric of the Krichinsky family. Newman reveals his mastery of his craft in weaving a melodic construct, which offers a multiplicity of emotions where sadness, nostalgia and familial warmth find a stirring confluence. For me, this theme may be one of the finest in Newman’s canon. Lastly, Newman understood that to ground the story he needed to infuse his soundscape with contemporaneous music of the era. As such a multiplicity of source music was woven into the fabric of his score.

“1914” offers a score highlight with a full rendering of the exquisite Main Theme. It supports the roll of the opening credits, which usher in commentary by Sam Krichinsky as he relates his story of coming to America. There is a sense of wonderment in his eyes as he watches the festive celebration of the 4th of July, alight with fireworks. Newman juxtaposes with the waltz, which speaks to the old world charm of Sam’s former life with his new life in America. We feel Sam, and Newman in a masterstroke captures the story’s emotional core. In “Weekend Musicians” we are offered another score highlight as Newman introduces his second primary theme. Sam relates to his retinue of young children how the five brothers after a hard week of working as wallpaper men, would celebrate life and family as musicians. They would as a violin quintet play at Balls and other formal social gatherings gracing the events with the elegance of old world charm. The scene offers an exquisite exposition of the Brother’s Theme as we see them playing on the balcony over a grand dance floor. The theme gains emotive power when Sam and Eva’s eyes lock, and we see the flame of love kindled. Soon the crowd vanishes and at 1:18 we see Sam and Eva dancing, a world unto themselves and as they dance in a flowing circle, so too does the music, revolving in graceful elegance.

“Jules & Michael” reveals Jules returning to his car on Christmas night to drive home with his son. He is brutally robbed and stabbed before Michael’s eyes. As they ride together in the ambulance to hospital, Newman belies the gravity of the situation and the anxiety in Michael’s eyes with gossamer like rendering of the Main Theme on piano delicato. At 1:20 strings affanato usher in a plaintive shifting of the melody, which descends with despair, ending without resolution as Jules in a delirium of blood loss flashes back to his childhood, regressing to the warm and loving embrace of his father. “Television, Television, Television” was dialed out of the film. Newman’s conception was to offer a playful oompah comic ditty to celebrate the arrival of the family’s first TV set. The following binary cue is sequenced backwards on the album from the film. At 1:09 in “Moving Day” we see Michael and his mother watching their home’s furniture being loaded into the moving vans. Newman supports the scene with a beautiful free-flowing melody carried by piano gentile and woodwinds delicato. The scene is seen from Michael’s child-like perspective; the music is kindred to the Main Theme, yet more optimistic and sunny in its expression. In a scene change with “Avalon” Sam reminisces with Jules in the now empty house about their early life here as a family. Jules is uprooting his family to move to the suburbs and Sam is aching with nostalgia, viewing the departure with an abiding sadness. Newman supports the heartfelt moment with a wistful rendering of the Family Theme, replete with an elegiac trumpet, which fleshes out both the overt and unspoken emotions felt by Sam and Jules.

In “Circus”, the Family Circle of relatives is debating the venue of the next meeting as they swelter in the heat. They all rush out front when they see the circus parading down the street. Newman supports its progress with classic big top circus music emoted as a methodical marcia festoso, replete with kettle drums and tuba! At 1:35 we flow into a wondrous score highlight as Newman graces us with perhaps the score’s most gorgeous rendering of the Family Theme. The music is heartfelt, warm and abounding with familial love. The final statement by clarinet, which closes the scene, is just so moving. As Sam sits with the kids, he reminisces about the days when he owned a nightclub. Newman supports the nightclub scene with a classic Swing piece that features trumpet, alto sax animato, piano and festive female vocals. This music was not included on the album. In “Wedding” the nightclub scene continues, and Jules and first cousin Nathan inform Sam that they each got married. When Sam asks to see the wedding certificates he becomes enraged, as Jules has changed his surname to Kaye, and Nathan to Kirk. He shouts that they are Krichinskys and we see the anguish in his eyes, the betrayal of the family name, and the abandonment of the old ways. Newman speaks to the powerful emotions here with a nostalgic rendering of the Main Theme with an evocative statement by a beautiful trumpet solo. At 1:22 the warm and more hopeful closing statement by solo flute informs us that love will prevail, and that the family will weather the storm.

“The Family” offers one of the score’s finest cues. It reveals Eva and Sam greeting her long lost brother who survived a Nazi concentration camp at the train station. As the family meets at Gabriel’s house to organize contributions to support them, Sam is enraged when they refuse to offer aid. Argument with hurtful words ensues, which causes Sam to resign as President of the Family Circle and to leave, declaring to Gabriel that he will never return. As they drive off Newman graces us with a wondrous exposition of the Main Theme, rendered in a multiplicity of variations, which supports a montage of scenes; a soliloquy by solo piano carries their silent and sad journey home. At 1:36 the piano line becomes rich and emotes as source music as we see Sam playing the piano for Michael. At 2:00 we change scenes to Sam wallpapering his bedroom for Sam and Ann’s new baby, advising Michael that they will be moving out to find their own place. A bridge by solo violin and kindred strings, ushers in a stirring confluence of strings, woodwinds and twinkling piano, which supports a panorama of the town, department store and neighborhood, bringing us to hospital where Ann departs with the new baby. As Sam hugs his grandchild and then departs, we return to the solo piano and conclude with the waltz, now bittersweet, yet also tender, and full of familial love. “No More Television” was excised from the film. Eva cannot get the TV to work, and Sam says just turn it off, bellowing – we will listen to the radio. Newman’s conception for the scene was a farcical and festive piece carried by string and horns animato to support Eva’s futile and comical efforts to get a picture.

In “The Fire” Michael and Teddy set fire to a model airplane in the department store basement, which they thought they extinguished, yet now believe caused a massive conflagration that destroyed Jules’ and Nathan’s department store. Newman scores the scene sowing darkness with forlorn horns, which give way to a plaintive trumpet elegy. Despite the tragedy hope remains as the Family Theme returns at 1:24 offering both solace and warmth. Later as Michael confesses to Jules we discover that the fire started as an electrical fire on the 4th floor, which exonerates Michael. At 2:17 woodwinds reaffirm familial love and hope, and we close with a moving tribute to a father’s love for his son. “Funeral” reveals Eva again complaining of indigestion. She leaves the picnic to take a stroll to walk it off with Michael and Teddy. The piano carried Main Theme carries their progress until she collapses. At 1:04 strings doloroso usher in the cemetery, where Eva is laid to rest. As Sam and Jules’ family departs, Sam relates his devastation that so many family members did not attend, even Eva’s brother. Newman harnesses the powerful emotions of grief, despair and disappointment with a stirring string requiem, so full of heartache, which culminates with an elegiac trumpet farewell. We conclude with a final reprise by solo flute, which never resolves, instead fading to nothingness.

“End Titles” offers a wonderful score highlight, a classic suite which features the score’s primary themes. We open with the Main Theme transfers the melody among woodwinds and solo violin with piano adornment. At 2:00 solo violin carries us into the Brother’s Theme, joined by kindred strings and piano for a wonderful extended iteration. At 4:24 we are graced with the Family Theme, which emotes with familial warmth and tenderness. We close at 6:10 with a whimsical and nostalgic reprise of the bittersweet Main Theme.

This review of Randy Newman’s masterwork score for Avalon is based on the original 1990 soundtrack release, and I believe the score merits a reissue in complete form with current state of the art digital mastering. I believe this score fully realized Barry Levinson’s vision, achieving in scene after scene a wondrous confluence of film narrative and music. This is a score, which demonstrates Randy Newman’s mastery of his craft. His three primary themes fleshed out and enhanced the powerful intersection of emotions of this family’s journey, always nurturing amidst the difficulties, struggles and tragedy, a kernel of hope. This is a score that graces us with his remarkable gift of melody, a score, which you feel deeply. I consider it a gem of the Bronze Age and one of the finest in Newman’s canon. I highly recommend it s addition to your collection.

Music composed and conducted by Randy Newman. Orchestrations by Jack Hayes. Recorded and mixed by Frank Wolf. Edited by James Flamberg. Album produced by James Flamberg and Frank Wolf.

]]>https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/07/avalon-randy-newman/feed/0moviemusicukGolden Globe Winners 2018https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/06/golden-globe-winners-2018/
https://moviemusicuk.us/2019/01/06/golden-globe-winners-2018/#respondMon, 07 Jan 2019 04:00:46 +0000http://moviemusicuk.us/?p=8858The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) have announced the winners of the 76th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and American television of 2018.

In the Best Original Score category composer Justin Hurwitz won the award for his score for director Damien Chazelle’s film First Man, which tells the life story of the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong. This is Hurwitz’s second Golden Globe, him having won previously for La La Land in 2016. In his acceptance speech, Hurwitz said:

“OK, alright. I have to thank Nick Baxter who mixed this score, and John Taylor who mixed this movie, because a theremin score could have ended up being very annoying, and they found the right place for everything to sit and showed that great mixers can make a composer look good. So, thanks to them. I want to thank Tom Cross who cut the film, and the whole editorial department – Harry Yoon, John To, Derek Drouin, Jennifer Stelemma, Jeff Harlacker, Jason Miller – I’m in awe of how you guys put together something so complex. Thank you of course to Damian [Chazelle], who is brilliant and loyal and touches every detail of our work. Thank you HFPA, thank you everybody at Universal, and the Los Angeles musicians.”

The other nominees were Marco Beltrami for A Quiet Place, Alexandre Desplat for Isle of Dogs, Ludwig Göransson for Black Panther, and Marc Shaiman for Mary Poppins Returns.

In the Best Original Song category, the winners were Stefani Germanotta (Lady Gaga), Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt, for their song “Shallow” from the latest version of A Star Is Born.

The other nominees were Jón Þór Birgisson (Jónsi), Troye Sivan, and Brett McLaughlin for “Revelation” from Boy Erased; Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, Anthony Tiffith, Mark Spears (Sounwave), Solána Rowe (SZA), and Al Shuckburgh (Al Shux) for “All the Stars” from Black Panther; Annie Lennox for “Requiem for A Private War” from A Private War; and Dolly Parton and Linda Perry for “Girl in the Movies” from Dumplin’.

How much do we actually know about Dick Cheney? According to director Adam McKay’s new film Vice, the answer is ‘not enough’. The film is a fascinating, hilarious, eye-opening piece of cinema, one part biopic, one part satire, and one part exposé of the way the political machine works in Washington DC, examining how one man can have so many fingers in so many pies that he can fundamentally alter the entire world without us really realizing it. It follows Cheney from his early years as an electrical lineman and violent drunk in Wyoming, his relationship with his wife Lynne, and how he eventually turned his life around and over the course of the next 40 years became a White House staffer during the Nixon administration, the White House Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford, a long-term member of the House of Representatives, the US Secretary of Defense under George Bush, the CEO of the Halliburton oilfield services company, and eventually Vice President under George W. Bush. He was directly involved in Operation Desert Storm, the military response to 9/11, the invasion of Iraq and the ousting of Saddam Hussein, and the drafting of the US Patriot Act – but the film also posits that he was also indirectly involved in the creation of Fox News to act as a mouthpiece for right wing views, advocated for the torture enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, and helped created the circumstances which led to the rise of ISIS. Changing the world indeed.

All this sounds as thought it might be quite mundane and dry, but the film is actually anything but. The cast – Christian Bale as Cheney, Amy Adams as Lynne, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush, a litany of cameos – inject life and energy and humor into their portrayals; Bale is especially astonishing in the lead role, disappearing entirely into the part and doing such a good impression that you often forget that you are not watching Cheney himself. Adam McKay’s direction is idiosyncratic, creative, and absolutely brilliant, with numerous flashy camera tricks, directorial wizardry, and moments of bold and ballsy misdirection that keep the audience engaged. One particular moment in the middle of the film had me laughing out loud at its audacity, while another – where Dick and Lynne are lying in bed speaking in Shakespearean iambic pentameter – really plays up the Machiavellian aspect of the Cheneys’ political aspirations. All this excellence also transfers to the score, written by composer Nicholas Britell. This is Britell’s second collaboration with McKay after The Big Short in 2015, and is the latest in a string of high profile assignments that include Moonlight, Battle of the Sexes, and If Beale Street Could Talk. It’s also the best score of his career to date, in my opinion, by quite some significant margin.

What you have to realize about Vice is that, by and large, the whole thing is musical satire. Britell isn’t really scoring Dick Cheney’s true life story here; he’s scoring the ironic overkill that Adam McKay has put on screen, and as such the music tends to be larger than life and overstated. This is all completely intentional – the array of musical styles Britell employs are all in the service of selling a hyper-realized caricature of the Dick Cheney story. The story is told in a series of musical vignettes, and so the music tends to be somewhat episodic too, with each scene or series of scenes existing in a sort of musical bubble, but there is still quite a bit of connective tissue between them, in terms of a couple of recurring thematic ideas, and a couple of recurring stylistic tones. Once you understand this creative approach, it’s easy to be impressed with the variety of musical choices Britell made, and how much he excels at all of them.

Britell’s main recurring theme is called ‘The Lineman,’ in reference to Cheney’s first job installing and repairing electrical power lines in rural Wyoming. It’s based around a four note main theme that sounds a little like James Horner’s famous ‘danger motif,’ and has various assorted flourishes and developments that elaborate upon and build from that central core. What I like about the theme is how it follows Cheney throughout most of his life, changing and adapting in both tone and orchestration, depending on what he is doing at that point in time. In the opening cue, “Prelude and Development,” it initially has a nostalgic quality, with gentle woodwinds, wistful strings, and a harp, but it gradually builds to encompass a bolder and more forthright sound for the full orchestra, with the main theme performed on solo trumpet, which to me seems to show Britell hinting at Cheney’s destiny to be a powerful, important man.

This main theme carries through much of the score. In “Vice – Main Title Piano Suite” it is heard on a softly jazzy solo piano. “The Lineman in E-Flat Minor” offers a longer exploration of the brass part of the main theme, dark and commanding, with an excellent solo trumpet performance, and some complex and abstract chord progressions which seem to be commenting on Cheney’s skewed world view. Later cues like “The Other Half Fears Us” and “Major Combat Operations Have Ended” also feature the theme strongly. Interestingly, there also seems to be an ‘election variation’ on the main theme that crops up in scenes of Cheney campaigning for office. This dance-like, almost caper-esque version adds a sort of carnival atmosphere to “James Earl Carter Jr.,” which underscores Jimmy Carter’s defeat of Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election, while later in “The Wyoming Campaign” the music expertly combines with some soft, wholesome writing that is phrased like music from a western.

The other recurring theme in the score is what I’m calling the Cheney Family Theme, and it appears most prominently in two cues. The first is “Dick’s Heart Is Healthier Than Ever,” which despite its brevity actually might be my favorite cue on the album; this is the cue from the ‘fake end credits’ that roll in the middle of the film, one of the best laugh-out-loud moments in the entire movie. Here, Britell unleashes a huge emotional orchestral theme, celebratory and rousing, which gets bigger and bigger as it progresses. What’s brilliant about this cue is that it’s used completely ironically; in context, the sweeping and passionate style evokes the massive finales people like James Horner were wont to write, but of course the joke is on us, because Dick didn’t remain in the private sector, Lynne didn’t go on to breed prize-winning golden retrievers, and the Cheney story was nowhere near over at that point in time. Not only that, but from a purely musical point of view the theme is just glorious, and makes me want Britell to score a sweeping romantic drama where that sort of music is required for real.

The second prominent cue where the Cheney Family Theme is heard is “At Death’s Door,” where all irony is stripped away and the theme is used to score the genuine emotion felt by the Cheneys when Dick suffers his most serious heart attack and his family is advised to prepare for his death. This is a moment of real emotional pathos, intimate and touching, and when Britell harmonically links this theme to the Lineman theme in the cue’s second half, the effect is outstanding.

Outside of these two main themes, there are also two stylistic ideas that Britell repeatedly revisits, the first of which is what I am calling ‘Washington Funk’. These cues are intended to evoke the nature of Cheney’s first political life in DC in the 1970s and 80s by using the musical tropes of jazz, funk, disco, and Blaxploitation movies to bring the backstabbing, machinations, and double-crossing to life. Cues such as “Master of the Switchblade,” “Flipping Cards,” “Taking Over the Damn Place,” and “The Washington Game Board” are full of Isaac Hayes-style brasses, wonderful wakka-wakka electric guitars, whistling, contemporary drums, Hammond organs, muted trumpets, jazz xylophones, and light hip-hop beats, all of which are brazen and confident and not taking any bullshit from anyone.

This stands in contrast to Cheney’s second political life in DC in the 2000s, which is underscored with a style that I am calling ‘Bush Administration Classical’. These cues are much more traditional-sounding, with a standard orchestral complement and straightforward emotional directness. These ideas start to emerge in “He Wants to Impress His Father,” which features some slightly devious-sounding woodwinds and sneaky but playful strings, for the scene where Dick agrees to be George W. Bush’s vice president. Later, “My Friend, My Running Mate” is a celebratory fanfare for when Cheney is introduced to a supportive Republican crowd, while “The War in Afghanistan/His Magnum Opus” plays like a fugue, with overlapping layers of violins and cellos offset against hooting clarinets. “The Iraq War Symphony” is a clever cue which, again, plays in ironic juxtaposition to reality, with music that projects strength and optimism while scenes of water-boarding and other assorted Abu Ghraib atrocities, and obvious Halliburton war profiteering, play in montage.

“Conclusion – The Transplant” is the longest cue in the score and is a clever piece which combines both the Lineman theme and the Cheney Family theme together through 7 minutes; the music shifts slowly between statements for both trumpets and violins, features some more intimate writing for layered strings, moments of cello virtuosity, and even has some hints of church music, possibly commenting on the Cheney family’s real faith. The final performance of the main Lineman theme in “Vice – Main Title Orchestra Suite” is lush and classical, and genuinely beautiful.

Writing a film score that is both satirical and sincere at the same time is one of the most difficult balancing acts a composer can undertake. You have to key the audience in to the joke while not overselling it to the point of obviousness, but then also use that same music to score scenes that are intended to be viewed un-ironically; finding that line can be a key element in whether a film is successful or not. Nicholas Britell not only found that line in Vice, but he also made his score genuinely interesting and appealing from a musical point of view – something that many composers fail to do. Moonlight earned Britell his first Oscar nomination, and If Beale Street Could Talk has been the recipient of a great deal of critical praise in 2018, but for me Vice is his standout score of the year, and it confirms to me that this is a composer whose voice will continue to be heard for many years to come.

Music composed and conducted by Nicholas Britell. Orchestrations by Matt Dunkley, Mark Baechle and Richard Bronskill. Recorded and mixed by Casey Stone. Edited by John Finklea. Album produced by Nicholas Britell.

Bringing Batman to the cinema was a torturous journey that took ten years to come to fruition. Producers Benjamin Melniker and Micheal Uslan purchased screen rights from DC Comics in 1979, and their creative vision was to abandon the campy TV iteration and fashion a dark and serious exposition of the hero. Regretfully United Artists, Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures all turned down the project, as they wanted a script that reprised the campiness of the TV series. Eventually in 1980 Warner Brothers took on the project seeking to capitalize on its massive success with Superman. Tom Mankiewicz was hired to write the script, which was completed in 1983. Yet the project stalled until 1985 when Tim Burton was hired. Burton wanted his own vision and so rejected Mankiewicz’s script, instead tasking Sam Hamm, a comic book fan, to write a new screenplay. After three years of delays by Warner Brothers executives, the film was given the green light to proceed in April of 1988. Casting the principles could have supported a feature film of its own. Instead of going with one of the leading male action movie stars of the day, Burton selected Michael Keaton whom he had directed in Beetlejuice, which caused uproar among comic book fans who sent 50,000 letters of protest to studio executives. The casting drama continued when Robin Williams was hired for the role of the Joker and then let go in favor of Jack Nicholson. Rounding out the cast would be Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale, Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon, Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent, and Jack Palance as Carl Grissom.

The film’s story reveals a protagonist and antagonist who are both deeply flawed. With Bruce Wayne we see a fractured identity, a man at war with himself, struggling with his alter ego Batman. Unlike the archetypal hero Superman, Batman offers the dark menace of the anti-hero. Pitted against him is a deranged freak, the alienated Joker, who is outcast from society. He seeks revenge on Batman who created his misery when he let him fall into a chemical vat, which cause horrific facial disfiguring. The Joker has been driven mad by his deformity, and is unbound by societal and moral constructs, operating amorally without empathy or regret. As Gotham prepares to celebrate its bicentennial, Batman and the Joker are brought into conflict as the Joker prepares to poison the city with “Smilex”, which will create the same facial deformity as his, ultimately leading to death. Each is intent on the destruction of the other, with the Joker repeatedly frustrated at Batman’s technology and gadgets. In the end, Batman prevails casting the Joker off a cathedral to his death. Batman is embraced by city residents and Commissioner Gordon who institutes the Bat-Signal that will be used to call Batman whenever Gotham City needs him. The film was a massive commercial success earning $411 million, or 12 times its production costs. It spawned a franchise of three additional films as well as Batman: The Animated Series, which unleashed the DC Marvel animated universe. Critical acclaim was mixed and it only secured one Academy Award nomination, for Best Art Direction.

Tim Burton had forged a bond with Danny Elfman after their two earlier collaborations, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice. So there was never any doubt that Elfman would be his choice for composer. Producer Jon Peters was however not receptive, and Elfman himself had doubts that he was up to taking on a production of this magnitude. All seemed to fall into place when Elfman won over Peters by providing his now iconic Batman Anthem. However new demands arose from Peters, that Prince write music for the Joker and Michael Jackson create some romance songs. Well Burton blew a gasket and refused Peter’s vision stating, “My movies are not commercial like Top Gun!” A compromise was eventually reached, Elfman would carry out his vision for the score, and Prince would write source music songs to be woven into the score’s tapestry. Prince eventually wrote nine songs, two of which were used as source cues.

For his score, Elfman would create three primary themes, and one secondary theme. Foremost is the iconic Batman Anthem, which has passed unto legend, rightfully taking its place as one of the greatest super hero themes ever written. Its conception arose on a plane flight home from England in an airplane restroom at 38,000 feet, with Elfman humming the notes into his tape recorder! The theme has a multi-phrasic construct, with the A Phrase consisting of an ascending four-note minor modal declarative phrase, which transitions to a major modal two-note descent. It drives forward with dark gothic power as a propulsive marcia bellicoso and serves as Batman’s identity, dramatically empowering him resolutely and purposely – unstoppable. The B Phrase is kindred as it also commences with a four-note ascent, however it then dissipates the anthem’s energy with a long lined descent from which re-launches the A Phrase. I believe this rising and falling motion brings a complexity and dynamism to the theme. Instructive is how Elfman deconstructs the theme, melding it to create suspense throughout the film. Also noteworthy is the inherent dichotomy and lack of resolution in the theme, which informs us of the psychic tension of the internal Bruce Wayne-Batman struggle. It suffices to say that this theme thrust Elfman into the tier one composer strata, and he has never looked back. The Joker’s Theme emotes as a grim valzer comico, full of occult menace, twisted and evil. It serves as his identity and provides a perfect juxtaposition to the Batman Theme. There is a secondary identity where Elfman interpolates Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer” song for those fleeting moments where his maniacal comedic side is revealed. The last primary theme is the Love Theme, which is multifactorial in that it speaks to the romance of Bruce and Vicki, but also Bruce’s love of his dead parents. Elfman interpolates Prince’s song “Scandalous” joining it with elements of the Batman Theme, which is shed of its gothic power, instead rendered full of yearning by strings tenero and piano. The Henchmen’s Theme serves as a secondary theme and is more rhythmic than melodic in its sensibilities. Every shifting percussive rhythms animate their comic-nefarious missions. Lastly, two pop songs by Prince were added to the soundscape to provide a contemporaneous sensibility for the audience.

“Main Title” offers the Batman Anthem in all its darkness and glory, a score highlight, which gains Elfman immortality for one of the greatest film openings in cinematic history. After the display of the Warner Brothers logo we open in the clouds, and as the credits roll, descend atop repeating statements of the A Phrase by foreboding horns supported by low register strings sinistri with counterpoint by ethereal harp and twinkling chime figures. As the Batman logo displays at 0:40 a monstrous crescendo erupts and Elfman unleashes the anthem at 0:46 as a driving marcia bellicoso, abounding with gothic power propelling dark purpose. At 1:20 a mysterioso for strings and organ sow unease as we continue our descent. We conclude atop repeating dire statements of the A Phrase, which close with a percussive storm. “Family” reveals a family walking with trepidation through an alley a s we behold the dark underbelly of crime infested Gothic City squalor. Elfman supports their progress by sowing tension and fear with a textural milieu of percussion, tremulous strings and bassoon. Robbers jump the family and steal their belongings, fleeing aloft to the safety of rooftops. At 0:45 in “First Batman” an ominous declaration of the Batman Theme informs us of his presence aloft. Elfman sows unease with low register percussion and tremolo strings until 1:35 when Batman descends stealthily to the roof supported by a menacing statement of his theme. Dark percussion, strings sinistri and hideous bassoons support the robbers as they count their spoils rooftop. At 2:03 in “Roof Fight” all Hell breaks loose as Batman appears and strikes. Elfman propels the fight with percussive rhythms kindred to the Batman Theme over which swirls ferocious orchestral mayhem. We conclude powerfully atop his theme as he jumps from the roof, vanishing within a mysterioso as the robber looks out with stunned amazement.

In “Jack Vs. Eckhardt” Jack Napier, crime boss Carl Grissom’s right hand, meets Lieutenant Eckhardt who is on his payroll. The men despise each other and Elfman supports their confrontation with textural writing, which sows unease and tension with pizzicato strings, low register piano, and bongos. We conclude with a nascent rendering of the Joker’s Theme, an allusion of his fate. “Up Building” reveals a rapid camera ascent aloft to Grissom’s penthouse office, which Elfman supports with a swift orchestral ascent atop pizzicato strings and glissandi. At 0:12 we segue into “Card Snap” where Grissom is meeting with his gangsters and Napier in his office. He seizes on Napier’s idea to break into the Axis chemical plant and steal incriminating records and tasks him with the job. As his secretary Alice glances at Napier, Elfman informs us of their relationship with a lusty saxophone. An angry Grissom is aware of the tryst and sets Napier up by informing the police. Elfman underscores his burning fury and revenge with pulsing percussion and resplendent tremolo strings In “Bat Zone” Bruce Wayne hosts a party at his mansion and converses with reporters Alexander Knox and Vicki Vale. He departs the party early and surreptitiously observes Vicki and Alexander with his security cameras, as Elfman stokes suspense with pulsing strings and muted horns. What follows is a mesmerizing mysterioso rendering of the Batman Theme on flute and kindred woodwinds, supported by strings animato as Bruce focuses in on Commissioner Gordon discussing Napier’s criminal involvement at the Axis Chemical plant. At 1:15 we segue into “Axis Set-Up” Where Eckhardt orders his men to ambush Napier as he breaks into a safe. Elfman sows mounting tension atop strings agitato, pizzicato strings and free form piano as Napier breaks into the safe, only to discover it empty.

In “Shootout” we have a score highlight where Elfman unleashes a stunning action piece empowered by the Batman Theme, now rendered with awesome and irresistible power. A gun battle ensues driven incessantly by a dark, rhythmic bass figure, staccato horns, overlaid with high register string figures, woodwinds animato and dire trumpet declarations. Juxtaposed is the Batman Anthem, which supports his subduing without mercy, one gangster after another. Terror is evoked, as Batman seems to appear and disappear at will. At 3:15 Batman confronts Napier, which Elfman supports with an astounding complex array of horn declarations, kinetic percussive rhythms, culminating in resounding trombones as a bullet strike’s Napier in the face and he teeters over a chemical vat, held inadequately by Batman. We close with massive chords and his theme as he slips from Batman’s grip and falls to his doom. “Dinner Transition” reveals Bruce and Vicki on a date at his manor. They are tentative and decide to leave the formality of the dining room, for a more intimate repast in the kitchen. As they leave, Elfman carries their progress with a subtle rendering of the Love Theme by piano and strings tenero. We segue seamlessly into “Kitchen Dinner” where we see affection growing between them, born by the Love Theme, which blossoms, carried by strings tenero, and woodwinds delicato over a sea of shifting piano chords. At 1:23 we change scenes to “Surgery” where a quack surgeon seeks to repair Napier’s wounds. As Napier beholds his disfiguration he staggers out laughing with insane menace. Elfman provides grotesque textural sounds by bassoon, percussion strings and piano as Napier’s bandages are removed to expose his horrific deformity.

“Face–Off” is an exceptional cue where Elfman’s creative writing shines. We open with the Love Theme as Vicki and Bruce share their first kiss. We change scenes at 0:12 to Grissom’s office where an enraged Joker visits him. The Joker is clearly insane, threatens Grissom and finally shoots him. Elfman’s music is both grotesque, reflecting the Joker’s disfigurement, and maniacal, reflecting his madness. Piano sinistri, pizzicato bass, cymbal brushings, rattling percussion and strings agitato carry the Joker’s rage. After he shoots Grissom, Elfman unleashes at 1:51 the Joker’s Theme in all its perverse glory, a maniacal valzer comico, full of menace, twisted and evil. A diminuendo with the music box rendering of his theme supports a segue at 2:25 into “Beddy Bye” where a contemplative Bruce watches over a sleeping Vicki. Elfman supports the moment with the Batman Theme expressed by strings romantico and piano delicato, thus informing us that she may be the catalyst of mending Bruce’s fractured psyche. Yet the theme’s articulation reverts to darkness as she wakes to find Bruce hanging upside down from his exercise bar. We conclude atop ominous horns with another scene change to the Joker, who has usurped Grissom’s position and office. As he revels in his new stature, a music box rendering of his theme carries the moment. In “Roasted Dude” the Joker asserts his control during his meeting with fellow gangsters by incinerating one of them to forcefully drive home the point of his dominion. Afterwards, as he converses with the corpse, Elfman speaks to his madness and malice with a grotesque textural milieu of ominous pulsing percussion, bassoon and rubbed glass rods.

“Vicki Spies (Flowers)” reveals Vicki trailing Bruce to an alley, where he lays two roses upon the site where his mother and father were murdered. A mysterioso rendering of his theme born by woodwinds, strings, horns and piano carry his progress. As he places the roses we are graced with an evocative Batman Theme rendered by strings romantico, adorned with harp and chimes. We conclude as Bruce holds a silent vigil, supported by dark resounding chords of regret. In “Clown Attack” the Joker forcibly takes control of Grissom’s business with an assault carried out by his henchmen, miming the Joker’s deformity. As machine guns blaze Elfman supports the mayhem of the henchmen’s attack with staccato piano strikes and grotesque strings. As the Joker moves to the forefront and kills a gangster boss with a poison dart, snare drums empower him, joined by monstrous resounding chords. “Photos” reveals Bruce and Alfred discussing Vicki, supported plaintively by piano chords, a violin sustain and English horn. As the scene shifts to Vicki’s apartment where we see her reviewing her photos of Bruce’s memoriam, strings tenero join the piano informing us of her growing affection. At 0:50 we shift atop a bowed saw to “Beautiful Dreamer” and the Joker’s lair where he is reviewing his own photos, achieving an eureka moment when he comes upon a photo of Vicki. We see him mesmerized by her and Elfman informs us of his lust by interpolating Stephen Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer”.

In “Men At Work” the Axis Chemical Factory has been repurposed to manufacture Smilex, the Joker’s lethal poisonous gas. Elfman reprises the action writing of the “Shootout” cue, with a mechanistic rhythm to support their activities. “Paper Spin” reveals newspaper headlines displaying news of the Joker’s Smilex murders supported by a swirling vortex of strings. At 0:05 we segue into “Alicia’s Mask” atop grotesque atmospherics as the Joker threatens a drugged Alicia that he was going to “make some art”. In “Vicki Gets A Gift” Bruce has apparently stood her up for their date at the Flugelheim Museum. Strings doloroso and piano inform us of her disappointment. The music mutates on grotesque string glissandi as she receives an odd gift – a gas mask. The Joker’s chattering percussion joins in evil communion with trombones di orrore, menacing strings, and trumpets agitato, which sow terror as purple gas floods the museum, killing all but Vicki, who was saved by the mask. The next scene where the Joker and his henchmen enter the museum is supported by the Prince song “Partyman”, whose dance like rhythms energize the Joker’s lunacy and vandalism. This song is not presented on the album.

As the Joker crudely attempts to make a sexual advance with Vicki, Elfman juxtaposes musically with the romantic theme from “A Summer’s Place” rendered by Percy Faith and his orchestra, which is not on the album. “Alicia’s Unmasking” reveals the captive Vicki watching the Joker unveil his latest sadism – the horribly burned face of Alicia. Vicki, who is filled with disgust, douses the Joker with a pitcher of water. He feigns injury, reprising grotesquely, the scene from “The Wizard of Oz” where the witch screams I’m melting. Horrific tremolo strings propel a grotesque dissonant crescendo as the Joker feigns excruciating pain. This ternary cue offers an astounding score highlight, which showcases the Batman Anthem with furious action scoring. In “Batman To The Rescue” Batman dramatically crashes through the Museum’s glass ceiling in an audacious rescue of Vicki. The Batman Anthem joined by kindred trumpets bellicoso stuns both Vicki and the Joker. Batman sweeps up Vicki and zip lines to safety carried with kinetic crescendo force. At 0:26 we segue into “Batmobile Charge” as the two board his technological wonder and escape, with the Joker and his henchmen in pursuit. Elfman propels the chase with a driving irresistible Batman Anthem juxtaposed by a malevolent surging of horns empowered by percussive chaos, which support the villains. We conclude at 1:28 with “Street Fight” where Batman and Vicki leave the blocked Batmobile on foot, with piano agitato carrying their progress. He safely deposits Vicki aloft on a rooftop and then engages the henchmen in combat. Elfman sweeps us away with an angry, churning sea of percussion and ferocious staccato trumpets as Batman takes down the henchmen one by one.

Batman prevails, and Vicki rejoins him, taking refuge in the Batmobile. In “Descent Into Mystery” Batman drives Vicki to the safety of the Bat Cave in the Batmobile. Elfman carries their progress with an eerie mysterioso of spectral chanting choir, set against contrapuntal rhythmic string and rhythmic woodwind figures. The Batman Anthem resounds as the Batmobile surges forward with unrestrained power, but dissipates replaced by strings tenero as Vicki contemplates the identity of the man behind the mask. We conclude with spectral choir and thundering waves of orchestral chords as the Batmobile arrives and enters the Bat Cave. In “Bat Cave” Elfman bathes us in a fluid mysterioso born of tremolo strings, flute delicato, and muted horns, adorned with harp and chimes. Vicki is mesmerized and surrenders herself as Batman envelops her with his cape, a moment crowned with a bold stamen of his theme. In a scene change at 2:34 to “Paper Throw”, pizzicato strings and horns create unease and urgency as the latest issue of the Gotham Globe reaches the newsstands. “The Joker’s Poem” reveals the Joker celebrating his apparent murder of Bruce at Vicki’s apartment with a poem and flatulence. As he departs Elfman supports with the secondary comedic music box thematic identity, which informs us of his humorous, yet twisted psyche. Howling trombones supports his crude flatulent powered exit. Vicki, who is stunned, recovers, and then moves to open another Joker present carried by his Music Box Theme. As she opens it, up springs a hand with dead roses, causing her to faint. A stinger marks the surprise.

In “Sad Pictures”, Vicki is shown newspaper records that reveal that Bruce’s parents were murdered at the site she saw him place flowers. Strings doloroso joined by a muted rendering of the Batman Theme speak of the pathos of the photo and the sympathy engendered in Vicki’s face. “Dream/Challenge” reveals the Joker issuing a cocky challenge to Batman on TV, which triggers a flashback as Bruce relives the murder of his parents by Napier. Elfman supports the flashback by creating a surreal pulsing mysterioso ambiance using low register piano, strings affanato, and wordless female choir. The marriage of visuals and music is excellent. We segue at 2:53 into “Tender Bat Cave” where Vicki is brought to Bruce by Alfred in the Batcave. All is now laid bare between them as they try to reconcile love and Bruce’s compulsion to ensure justice. The scene is supported by what I believe is the most evocative rendering of the Love Theme in the score. Its articulation is tinged with sadness, informing us that the future portends uncertainty. “Charge Of The Batmobile” offers a rousing score highlight that features a ferocious rendering of the Batman Anthem. Bruce cuts off the argument, declaring that he needs to go to work. As he suits up for battle, a drum roll launches a powerful choir enhanced declarative statement of the Batman Anthem. As he drives the Batmobile with a grim resolve, the anthem propels his progress like a juggernaut, unstoppable! A grand, operatic declaration of the anthem resounds as he crashes through the gates of Axis Chemical factory and destroys it with a barrage of cluster bombs!

“Joker Flies To Gotham” reveals the Joker aloft in a helicopter, taunting Batman. Elfman conceived of grotesque stinger, which was dialed out of the film. We segue at 0:11 into “Batwing I” where Batman descends in the Batwing, empowered by an aggressive statement of his anthem, which resounds with menace. The album does not contain the music for the scene between these two cues. We see the Joker staging a nighttime parade in downtown Gotham, which features massive comic balloon caricatures filled with the lethal Smilex gas, and the Joker showering the crowd with $20 million in cash. Prince’s festive song “Trust” was used with good effect to provide the necessary festive energy. “Batwing II/Batwing III” offers one of the score’s most dynamic action cues, which supports Batman’s battle with the Joker. The Joker intends mass murder and begins unleashing his lethal gas on a crowd. Horrific chords of doom join in unholy communion with trumpets terrore and a swirling vortex of strings to support his attack. Juxtaposed to this monstrosity is the Batman Theme, which is also buttressed with horns bellicoso and energetic strings as the Batwing flies through the skyscrapers. At 3:08 Batman grapples the four balloons, intending to drag them upwards to save the crowd. His theme empowered by trumpets feroci, bells and kinetic pounding percussion support his audacious counterattack, and the subsequent challenge of the struggling Batwing to ascend to safety. As he barely avoids crashing into a skyscraper his anthem resounds triumphantly as he releases the balloons. Pizzicato and low register string percolate, informing us of the Joker’s outrage. We conclude atop the Batman Theme as the Batwing descends, guns blazing on an attack run intending to kill the Joker and his henchmen. Remarkably, the Joker survives the assault and shoots down the Batwing with a single bullet from his long barrel pistol. A torrent of trumpets and kindred horns support the crash of the Batwing into the cathedral steps.

“Cathedral Chase” offers an astounding score highlight, a kinetic cue where we see the joker dragging Vicki upwards in the Cathedral with Batman in pursuit. As they ascend the bell tower to their final confrontation, Elfman propels Batman’s ascent with dramatic repeating horn declarations of his anthem, resolute and unstoppable. As the Joker gains the bell tower loft, Batman’s Theme resounds as massive Herrmannesque organ empowered chords, which are juxtaposed to the evil chimes and music box melody of the Joker. “Waltz To The Death” offers creative writing by Elfman. Batman’s Theme carries him to the bell tower loft. As he battles the Joker’s henchmen, the Joker joins Vicki in a comic valzer macabre. The graceful waltz rhythms support his perverse lunacy and juxtapose the violent fist de cups of the battle raging about them.

The following two cues are supreme score highlights, which intensely support the final confrontation between Batman and the Joker. In “Showdown” Batman seeks vengeance for the murder of his parents and quickly gains the upper hand as he pummels the Joker and knocks him over the ledge, yet his theme has lost its vital energy as it contests with the Joker’s twisted cadence of strings sinistri and col legno strings. We see in Batman’s eyes that he is consumed by hate, which allows the Joker an opportunity to strike. We segue into “Showdown II” at 1:12 as the joker manages to pull Batman and Vicki over the edge and gloats as they hang desperately for their lives. Elfman speaks to their peril with harp and cymbal waves, which join with a depleted rendering of the Batman Theme on pipe organ. Dark and ominous chords of doom resound as the Joker’s henchmen approach with his helicopter. As he grabs on to the ladder his perverse gloating is supported by frenetic horns running upwards and downwards in their register. Yet all is not lost as the Batman Theme resounds as he fires his cable gun, which ties the Joker to a gargoyle, which snaps, taking the Joker to his death. His death fall is propelled by the fury of descending strings and trumpets. A romantic rendering of the Batman Theme supports our lovers, yet it is short-lived as the ledge crumbles and they plummet supported by shrieking trumpets. As he saves them with another cable gunshot, the romantic rendering of the Batman Theme returns as they grasp each other with relief. As we descend below to the Joker’s corpse, a twisted variant of his theme, replete with chimes bring us to him, yet he gets the last laugh as a gag laugh-maker hidden in his pocket sounds.

In “Finale” a triumphant declaration of a Batman Theme resounds as Commissioner Gordon christens the new Bat-signal, which displays on the clouds above. As Vicki and Alfred depart in a limousine the scandalous melody carries their progress and ushers in resounding declarations by trumpets trionfanti of the Batman Theme, which carry us upwards to his rooftop silhouette as he gazes at the Bat-signal emblem in the clouds. We close majestically upon his theme, which ends in a flourish, informing us that justice will soon call as new villains await. The “End Credits” are propelled by a powerful rendering of the Batman Anthem in all its glory. The remainder of the credit roll, which is not on the album, is supported by Prince’s song “Scandalous”.

I would like to thank Dan Goldwasser, Neil Bulk, MV Gerhard and La La Land Records for this exceptional reissue of Danny Elfman’s seminal score to Batman. The sound quality is excellent and provides a wonderful listening experience. The inclusion of the film score, original soundtrack release, and alternative cues makes this a quality product. This score propelled Danny Elfman to tier one composer status and he has never looked back. Following in the tradition of John Williams, Elfman’s anthem for Batman joins Superman as iconic super hero anthems, which have passed unto legend. In a masterstroke of conception, Elfman captured the emotional core of Burton’s film, providing the power, mystery and darkness that was Batman. The anthem excelled in providing the kinetic energy necessary to drive Burton’s narrative, and the contest between hero and villain. Brilliantly juxtaposed to the Batman Anthem were the themes of our villain, the Joker. The use of comic and macabre waltzes, music box chimes, and festive songs by Prince fleshed out lunacy, perversion and maniacal menace of this amoral monster. This score understood that super heroes are larger than life and so require power anthems to rouse and inspire. I consider this score to be one of the finest of the genre, a masterwork of the Bronze Age, and one of the finest in Elfman’s canon. I highly recommend its purchase as essential for your collection.

There have been some truly bonkers super-hero films over the years, but Aquaman may take the cake as being the nuttiest of all. It tells the origin story of the much-derided DC Comics character who first appeared on film in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and then again in 2017’s Justice League; it stars Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry, the long-estranged son of the Queen of Atlantis, who after many years living amongst regular humans must return home and reclaim his throne in order to stop the megalomaniacal plans of his brother. The film is directed by James Wan and co-stars Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman, Patrick Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Dolph Lundgren, and Temuera Morrison and, to give it its due, it looks absolutely phenomenal. Other than some rather ropey de-aging which makes Morrison look like his own bad Madame Tussaud’s waxwork, the special effects in the film are simply mind-blowing; the concept design and seascapes of the underwater Atlantean kingdom are so beautiful and creative, and some of the shot composition – especially during the Trench sequence – is just spectacular. However, all this is undermined by the truly terrible screenplay, the non-existent chemistry between the leads, the bafflingly clichéd dialogue, the plot contrivances that make the deus ex machina of other films seem inspired, and the existence of several utterly weird individual moments. This film contains – and I’m not kidding here – an octopus playing the drums, Heard wearing a dress made of jellyfish, battle-hardened seahorses fighting sentient crab people, sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads, flying wine knives, Momoa eating roses as a snack, Kidman eating a goldfish like it’s an outtake from A Fish Called Wanda, a bad guy who calls himself Ocean Master with no hint of irony, a random tourist getting crushed by a building and then walking away like nothing happened, Willem Dafoe sporting a man-bun topknot, and an ancient racist underwater sea monster voiced by Julie Andrews, among many other truly mind-boggling things. You’ll just have to experience it for yourselves.

The score for Aquaman is by English composer Rupert Gregson-Williams, who appears to be shifting gears from being ‘the guy who scores all the Adam Sandler movies’ to being ‘the guy who scores the standalone DC movies,’ after his success working on Wonder Woman in 2017. I like Gregson-Williams a lot, and he’s written some really good scores for films you wouldn’t expect, like Click and Bedtime Stories and Hacksaw Ridge, but when it comes to his comic book movie work it often feels like he is being constrained into writing music that is less a representation of his personal style, and more the voice of a corporate monstrosity. With that being said, the score for Aquaman does make it feel a little more like the people at DC allowed Gregson-Williams to go out on a limb and try to adopt a different approach. The first and most obvious creative choice he made was to score the two settings of the film differently: the world above water has a familiar, massively heroic orchestral sound, while the world of Atlantis has a more ethereal sound featuring a more prominently electronic palette. There are also several recurring themes: one for Aquaman, one for his nemesis Orm, one for the recurring villain Black Manta, and an all-encompassing ‘family’ theme that addresses the relationships between Aquaman, the Atlantean princess Mera, his mother, and his father.

The score starts with a forgettable song, “Everything I Need” performed by Skylar Grey, before the first cue begins in “Arthur,” a suite of music which explores a couple of the score’s main identities, especially the ones for Atlantis and the theme for Aquaman himself. It shifts around quite a bit – sometimes it is electronic, and has an ethereal and wondrous sound, while at other times it becomes more orchestral, and feels powerful and expansive. Some of the Atlantean synth textures remind me very much of Daft Punk’s music from the Tron sequel crossed with Mark Mothersbaugh’s score for Thor Ragnarok, but some of the whizzes and fizzes sound almost too cheesy for their own good, especially when they start emulating Donna Summer disco dance rhythms – I got strong vibes of her 1977 classic “I Feel Love” and its prominent Moog Modular 3P synthesizer. On the other hand, when it is arranged for the full acoustic complement, Aquaman’s theme can be quite impressive, especially when it is accompanied by Tony Clark’s electric guitar and the London Voices choir.

The electronic textures come back regularly in sequences which are set in, or relate directly to, Atlantis, as evidenced by the second cue “Kingdom of Atlantis” which has a dream-like, almost otherworldly tone which is at times quite beautiful. I was trying to understand what it was about those particular electronics which drew Gregson-Williams in; 80s synth throwbacks are all the rage these days, even more so after the success of Thor Ragnarok last year, and so in the absence of any actual narrative element driving the choice, I can only conclude that director and composer simply thought they sounded ‘cool,’ which I suppose is as good a reason as any.

The next cue, “It Wasn’t Meant to Be,” introduces the ‘family theme,’ which comes across as an emotional variant on Arthur’s theme and has a big and sweeping 1990s Media Venture vibe which, at this point, could almost be considered as retro as the synths. The doomed relationship between Arthur’s human father and his Atlantean mother is conveyed by some warmly emotional chord progressions that are quite lovely, and by the introduction of a softly hooting duduk; the unmistakable sound of this Armenian oboe almost became a Hollywood cliché after it was first popularized by composer Elia Cmiral and his score for Ronin in 1998, but it’s been a while since it was used so prominently in a mainstream film like this, and it’s haunting, lamenting sound is still effective . The cue builds up to a massive, sweeping finale with choir, cymbal rings, and a soaring brass countermelody that is quite impressive.

The final elements to be introduced are the themes for Orm and Black Manta, both of which appear in the fourth cue, “Atlantean Soldiers”. Orm’s theme and the Black Manta theme are tonally and compositionally linked considering that the two are working together, but there does appear to be a distinct difference between the music for one and the music for the other despite their themes often appearing sequentially, and sometimes it appears that both themes represent both characters depending on the scene and the context. From what I can tell, Orm’s theme is prototypical of a ‘big bad villain,’ featuring growling brasses and a harsh electronic tone which makes the score sound distorted and gives the music an unusual ‘sizzle’ effect at the higher registers. The percussive drive and rasping horns does seem a little over the top in conveying the evilness of the character, but its fun to hear Gregson-Williams pulling no punches in clearly stating who this person is. Meanwhile, the Black Manta motif is a three-note declarative statement – bom bom bommmmm! – that heralds his presence; in subsequent cues, notably “The Black Manta,” the motif is accompanied by crushing electronics, bubbling synths, and string ostinatos, all of which Gregson-Williams intended to be representative of the character’s contemporary vibe and modern outlook.

And that, in a nutshell, is the score. Almost everything else in the score from the fifth cue onwards is a statement of one or more of these thematic ideas, incorporated into the body of an endless stream of massive action cues. Gregson-Williams’s action music is certainly impressive from a compositional standpoint: it’s loud, brash, energetic, and makes full and prominent use of the entire orchestra, a large choir, electronics, and some specialty instruments including the duduk, an occasional electric guitar, and an enhanced percussion section.

Several cues stand out as being especially impressive. “Swimming Lessons” – which underscores one of the flashback scenes where Willem Dafoe’s character teaches young Arthur about his history and heritage – augments the electronics with gentle piano chords that eventually open up into bold statements of both the Aquaman theme and the Family theme, featuring an especially strong duduk solo. “What Could Be Greater Than a King?” is similar, featuring a great deal of action, a gorgeous statement of the Family theme in the middle of the cue, and a big statement of Aquaman’s theme at the end. “Permission to Come Aboard” showcases a big, bad, rock-inflected rendition of Arthur’s theme which gets pitted against an equally strong performance of Black Manta’s theme when the two begin to fight on board a hijacked Russian submarine, and which also features a short but unexpected sequence of Thomas Newman-style guitars half way through.

Several of the action cues – notably “Suited and Booted,” “He Commands the Sea,” and “Ring of Fire” – see Gregson-Williams engaging in some obvious musical conflict, where Aquaman’s theme and Orm’s theme battle it out in our ears as the characters do the same on-screen. “He Commands the Sea” has some raging string runs, menacing choral chanting, and electronic pulses, and reaches some truly monumental heights of rousing power featuring especially strong brass writing. Meanwhile, “The Ring of Fire” opens with an ancient-sounding call-to-arms on a heraldic horn augmented by an eight-tentacled drumbeat, and promotes either Orm’s menacing darkness or Aquaman’s uplifting heroism, depending on which character has the upper hand. The problem with this cue, however, is something that plagues much of the action music as a whole, and that is that it often feels very generic. I really don’t like using that word, but I can’t think of another way to describe it.

While listening to these cues in the film, it was all I could do not to roll my eyes as the music in these scenes unfolded; the vowel chorus sounds like a poor man’s variation on the classic 1990s Zimmer style from scores like The Peacemaker, the relentless percussion and swirling strings sounds like a beefed up version of Junkie XL’s Mad Max, and some of the orchestral sounds come across like soulless trailer music. It’s like Gregson-Williams found all the most obvious action super hero clichés from the past decade or so, and just decided to use them all. I suppose your reaction to them might depend on whether you buy into the overall cheese factor of the movie itself; if you’ve reconciled yourself to the idea that this is all pulpy, campy fun, then the music will probably feel the same way. If you felt that the whole thing was irredeemably stupid, as I did by the end, then your feelings about the music may end up being much more negative.

A couple of final cues are worth mentioning. “Between Land and Sea” is clever in the way it takes the melody from the ‘Everything I Need’ song and turns it into a lush orchestral romantic theme that builds to a huge emotional climax. “Reunited” provides a fitting sendoff to the score with a strong string performance of the Family theme, whizzing electronica textures, and electric guitar and duduk giving color to the orchestra. Finally, “Trench Engaged” is a dark, angry, dissonant orchestral passage for strings written by director Wan’s long-time collaborator on the Insidious and Conjuring movies, Joseph Bishara, whose experience at providing horrific orchestral carnage allows the Kingdom of the Trench sequence to feel rather disturbing.

The album is rounded out by a remixed version of “Everything I Need,” and a completely weird song called “Ocean to Ocean” which is hip-hop superstar Pitbull’s bizarre reworking of Toto’s classic 1980s song “Africa” for the scene where Arthur and Mera track across the Sahara Desert in search of a certain artifact. I love that original song, but Pitbull utterly ruins it and makes that scene a complete laughing stock.

In the end, Aquaman is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I appreciate the effort Gregson-Williams took to create individual thematic identities for all the main characters and concepts. Aquaman’s theme is never going to be as well known as Superman’s or Batman’s, but the attempt was made and the musical tapestry of themes gives the score a good internal architecture. Similarly, I found the use of intentionally retro synth ideas to be a fun and interesting diversion which seeks to fit in with the current super hero vogue. However, as I mentioned, a whole lot of the score’s epic moments and its more large-scale action sequences do feel a little like musical wallpaper, blaring away loudly and never saying anything more nuanced than “this is the good guy” and “this is the bad guy” and “be excited now.” Jason Momoa, with the help of his impressive follicles and his bulging pectorals, may have washed away the bad taste of the original comic book Aquaman, but it will still never match the musical brilliance of the Man of Steel or the Dark Knight.

Music composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams. Conducted by Alastair King. Orchestrations by Alastair King. Additional music by Evan Jolly and Sven Falconer. Featured musical soloist Tony Clark. Recorded and mixed by Alan Meyerson and Jason Larocca. Edited by Paul Rabjohns and J. J. George. Album produced by Rupert Gregson-Williams.